


on the line

by alnima



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, And everything goes with those jobs (read the notes for details!), Assassins & Hitmen, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Light Angst, M/M, Marriage Counseling, Minor Niall Horan/Louis Tomlinson, Sexual Content, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 12:33:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11828847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alnima/pseuds/alnima
Summary: Zayn nods and watches him, feeling like he should feel relieved. Mostly he’s worried. It’s a silly thought, but sometimes Zayn wonders if Harry has some boyfriend across town that he goes to see on nights like this, nights where the air feels different between them. And because even after six years, it’s never made sense to Zayn why Harry, a salesman, needs to spend so much time at the office at night. But who is he to have suspicions when he’s about to head out and deal with some drug trafficker across town?Or, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the Zarry version





	on the line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [god0nlyknows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/god0nlyknows/gifts).



> Warnings: Harry and Zayn are both assassins/spies, and I think what you encounter in this fic is all relative to that profession. There is talk about murder and death, in no graphic detail. I think if you've seen the movie, then you should have a good idea of it all. There is attempted murder, between Zayn and Harry, between an outsider and Zayn and Harry, and in relation to their jobs. There is the usage of guns in this fic, and some action that could (and probably should) be categorized as domestic violence between Zayn and Harry (again, if you've seen the movie, this should be of no surprise. Though, I think the movie is worse than the fic, tbh). Please let me know if you find any additional tags that should be added.
> 
> So, god0nlyknows, you are the prompter of my dreams, and I'd write them all if I could, but ultimately I chose the Mr. and Mrs. Smith AU, because I wanted to try something new. This does not entirely follow the movie, but I did take a couple things from it. It's a loose AU, and I hope you enjoy it.

“Before we get started,” Harry says, “I just want to say that I don’t think we need to be here.”

Zayn sighs.

“No, it’s just—Our marriage is fine,” Harry explains, smiling. “We’re here because we want to make sure that… It’s like a check up, you know? We’re just checking up on things, on each other, making sure everything stays on this same path.”

Across from them, wearing a soft green dress and a softer smile, her legs folded at the ankle, is their new marriage counselor, Dr. Maria Atsina. She came with a list of reviews as long as Zayn’s arm, boasting her up to be one of the best counselors that there is. They found her one night when they decided that maybe they should see someone, and with such great reviews online, Harry was sold immediately. Zayn’s opinion is to be determined, at this point.

“We’ve been married for five years, and—“

“Six years,” Zayn corrects, arms folded, smiling at the doctor instead of looking at Harry.

“Right, about five or six years, and we’re doing great. Everything is fine. More than fine,” Harry says. “I just wanted to say that before we could dive into anything.”

“Well, thank you for that, Harry,” she says, shifting in her seat. “If that’s all, I’d like to move forward.”

“Absolutely,” Zayn agrees. Anything to get Harry to stop before he goes off on a tangent about how _fine_ their marriage is.

Dr. Astina nods. “I’m going to start off with some fairly simple questions, just to get to know you both, and get an idea of where you’re both at.”

“We’re fine.”

Zayn sighs, finally turning to look at his husband. “Harry.”

“Sorry,” Harry mutters, smiling quickly at Zayn before he turns back to Dr. Astina. “We’re ready.”

“Okay,” she says, and Zayn can tell that she’s trying not to sigh, “these are going to be sort of like rapid fire questions. Just say the first thing that comes to mind, okay?” Zayn and Harry nod. “On a scale of one to ten, how happy are you in your marriage?”

“On most days, I’d say an eight,” Zayn says, because he’s happy, for the most part. He is. The things that Zayn could complain about aren’t that big of a deal and they don’t affect the overall quality of his marriage, he doesn’t think.

“Wait, I don’t understand the question,” Harry says. “Is ten happy or is ten, like, we hate our marriage?”

“Ten is happy.”

“Okay, then an eight. Yeah, eight sounds good.”

“What about your partner?” Dr. Astina asks. “How happy do you believe your partner is in your marriage? Harry?”

“How happy do I think Zayn is? Well, I guess it depends, but he said an eight, so I’ll agree with that. Zayn?”

“Eight,” Zayn says automatically, because no one is perfectly happy all the time, and Harry said eight, so Zayn is going to trust that Harry is happy with him, because why wouldn’t he?

“This might seem like an invasive question,” Dr. Astina says, “but how often are you intimate with each other?”

Harry snorts while Zayn mutters, “Pardon?”

“How often are you intimate?” She repeats. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but this will help me get a better understanding of your relationship and where you’re both at.”

“And you mean sex, right?” Harry asks and Dr. Astina nods.

“Whatever being intimate means for you both,” she says.

“Okay, are we doing this on a scale of one to ten as well?” Zayn asks.

“However you feel like answering it.”

“So would that be, like, one for once a week or one for never this week? Or, one for, like, not really all that often?” Harry asks.

“Yeah, that’s a good point. I’m a little confused on how you want us to answer that,” Zayn tells her, sitting up a little straighter, smoothing out his shirt to calm his nerves, because why the fuck is he nervous? “Because with your method, technically speaking, zero would be nothing instead of one, shifting the scale from one to ten, to zero to ten, unless you mean the quantity, and then that changes it entirely because we’ve been… _intimate_ more than ten times.”

“Just however you want to answer it, use that way.”

“And is that this week, or all of our relationship?”

“If this week is better for you, then you can use that.”

“Does the weekend count?” Harry asks.

“It does.”

“Okay,” Harry mutters, scratching at his jaw. Zayn stares at him, watching and waiting for Harry to answer the question. “That was, um... When was the last time you had sex?”

Zayn glares, fixing Harry with an unimpressed look. “You were there, Harry.”

“Right, well. I think that’s a relief,” He mumbles. “So, we’ve established that we were together, so I think that’s fairly telling, I’d say.”

“Neither of you have an answer for this?” Dr. Astina asks, looking between the two of them.

“What if—What if we say that we have had sex, like, in the past?” Harry asks.

“Do you have another question, maybe?” Zayn asks and Harry nods, pointing at Zayn to silently say that he seconds that.

“When did you first meet?”

“About five years ago.”

“Six years ago,” Zayn corrects.

“Five or six years ago,” Harry says. “We were in Brazil.”

“Los Angeles.”

“No, it was Brazil, because I remember you sitting on the side of that pool,” Harry explains. “He couldn’t swim, then, but he was sitting at the bar, you know the ones that they have by the pools that you can swim up to and order drinks? Anyway, he was the only person outside wearing jeans. And shoes. He had jeans on, shoes on, and a beanie on.”

“Oh, yeah,” Zayn laughs. “You’re right. I remember now that you wearing that floral shirt with the white shorts, strutting along the edge of the pool like he owned the place, or like he could if he wanted to. I liked that about him.”

“Couldn’t take his eyes off me,” Harry teases. “But I saw him in those jeans and I knew he was the only one who could buy me a drink since he was the only one who had pockets.”

“Swim trunks can have pockets.”

“Mine didn’t,” Harry grins, tilting his head so that he can look at Zayn. “The second time we met was in LA.”

Maria nods. “Why did you decide to get married? It sounds like you were married fairly quickly, if you’ve been married six years and met six years ago.”

“Harry suggested it one night,” Zayn mutters, staring down at the floor. “We were driving home from dinner. He said that we should get married, and I—I couldn’t think of why we shouldn’t. It felt right,” he says, looking back up at Dr. Astina.

Harry had been bright and beautiful, and it felt like he filled in all of the spaces of Zayn that he didn’t know were empty, that needed to be filled. He marched to the beat of his own drum, and the rhythm of it pulled Zayn in like a siren song, from the moment they met Zayn had been hooked, but that feels like too much to tell his therapist.

“It felt like something we should be doing, the two of us,” Zayn continues. “Together. I married him because I couldn’t think of marrying anyone else, didn’t want to.”

“Harry?” She prompts, watching him carefully, her deep brown eyes watching him.

“I knew he was it. Endgame,” Harry says, nodding. “I wanted to ask him, but I was scared. Asking could lead to rejection, so I thought I’d toss it out casually, like an idea, like we were trying to pick out a movie or something. I just wanted him, in every way that he’d let me have him, so I asked. Well, sort of asked.”

Dr. Astina smiles. “How long into your relationship were you when you decided to get married?”

“Two months,” Harry admits.

Zayn stares at her, watching and waiting. Everyone tends to make comments about how soon that is, how it’s too fast to really know someone, to know anyone, let alone if you want to spend the rest of your life with that person. But they’ve made it six years. _Six_ years. Dr. Astina doesn’t seem inclined to say anything, but Harry does.

“You’re not really saying anything about any of this.”

“What would you like for me to say?”

“I don’t know. It just seems odd that you’re asking us all these questions and you have nothing to say about our answers, one way or the other.”

“She’s trying to get to know us,” Zayn says, wrapping his fingers around Harry’s arm. “Just let her ask her questions, okay?”

“All right,” Harry breathes, nodding. “Sorry, go on.”

Dr. Astina smiles. “Harry, the answers to these questions are not ones that I can dispute if that’s what you’re looking for. You met six years ago in Brazil, and then, a few months later, you were married. I’m simply trying to get a basic understanding and outline of your lives together, to help me help you, in future sessions.”

Zayn watches as Harry wets his lips, nodding his head to indicate that he understands.

//

They don’t immediately schedule a second appointment when they leave. Instead, they promise to call, claiming that they need to check their schedules. It’s only partially a lie because Zayn really is going to need to schedule this appointment as close to the appointment date as possible, if he can, because his schedule is shit and he can never be certain where he’ll be in the world at any point in time.

Harry opens his car door for him when they reach it, patting Zayn’s shoulder as he passes him to round the front of the car and get in. It’s still muggy in the car, warm but not entirely unpleasant now that the sun is starting to set.

Zayn watches the scenery change as Harry drives, the car silent aside from some 70’s ballad CD that Harry bought on an infomercial late one night for nearly forty dollars that came out of their account monthly, just like the CD’s – a 70’s disco CD, music of the 60’s, hits through the decades – and Zayn wanted to throttle him when he found out, because Harry only thought he was paying forty dollars for a yearly subscription and not per disc, and how they really should put that in the fine print on TV, because how was he supposed to know?

Zayn sighs and turns to look at Harry, turning the volume down on the song that Harry is belting. “What’d you think, babe?”

“Of what?”

“Dr. Astina.”

“Oh,” Harry mutters, eyes on the road. “I didn’t really think anything of her.”

“I wasn’t a huge fan of her questions,” Zayn admits.

“Hmm. Agreed. I wasn’t a huge fan of her just…sitting there. She had nothing to say, really.”

“And her office is a pretty decent drive from home,” Zayn adds.

“True,” Harry agrees, hand already reaching for the volume. “So, should we just blow it off?”

Zayn sighs, as the music gets louder, cutting off his answer. He turns back to stare out of the window, trying to decide what they should do. Because if Harry really doesn’t like her, then he won’t be of much help at any of their appointments, and Zayn can’t be the only one working towards—Zayn doesn’t know what they’re working towards, not really. He knows that things have felt different lately, heavier and like they’re in some kind of rut that he can’t seem to navigate out of, like their relationship is a car stuck in the mud and the wheels just keep spinning and spinning and spinning but the car never actually moves forward. It doesn’t feel like they’re going anywhere, just like they’re living their lives and going through the motions of what they know their relationship should be, completely stuck in autopilot.

But it’s not bad, things between them. Harry doesn’t usually get angry about things, neither does Zayn, and they don’t bicker like some married people do. Though, they do have their moments.

Sighing once more, Zayn rests his head against the window, listening to Harry sing and knowing that they’ll figure out somehow.

//

When Zayn wakes up the next morning, Harry is already awake, just like he always is. He’s probably been awake for ages, going for his morning run and then taking a shower, before Zayn wakes up to the sound of him puttering around the kitchen, making coffee.

They’re opposites, in this sense. Zayn will hit snooze on the alarm a total of seven times before he can force himself out of the warmth they’ve created in their bed over night. Harry, on the other hand, seems to almost wake up early naturally, like he’s trained his body to rise with the sun. He’s always joked that it was lucky Zayn sleeps like the dead; otherwise, he’d be waking with him.

Zayn finds Harry in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a plate of eggs. He’s scrolling through his phone, scowling as he reads bits of news. It’s how people of the twenty-first century read the paper, Harry has explained to Zayn tirelessly, even though they have an actual paper delivered to their house that gets used only as kindling for their fireplace in the winter.

“Morning,” Harry says, turning to smile at Zayn briefly before he turns his eyes back to the phone.

Zayn grunts in reply, too tired to form words. There’s a cup of coffee waiting for him, made just the way he likes it, and Zayn sighs as he drinks it, feeling the gears his body begin to turn at the first taste of caffeine.

There’s also a plate of food waiting for him, so Zayn takes it, and sits at the table, eating across from his husband in complete silence, just like they do every morning.

Later, when Zayn’s in the shower, scrubbing the shampoo out of his hair, Harry strolls into the bathroom in his underwear, scratching absently at his stomach so that he can brush his teeth and do his hair, running product through the strands with his fingers when Zayn steps out, naked, reaching for his towel off the hook.

Harry doesn’t even look at him. He used to. He used to stare at Zayn with hunger in his eyes, like he could eat him, like he couldn’t get enough of Zayn, like he couldn’t believe that Zayn was his, that he and only he got to see Zayn like this, fresh out of the shower, rubbing the towel over his body to dry off. But that was ages ago before the honeymoon phase ended and Harry had spent years looking at his body.

Harry leaves the bathroom silently, and Zayn knows he’s going to get dressed. Knows he’ll wear the blue suit pants and the white button up, top buttons were undone with no jacket and no tie, because _only_ Harry can get away with something like that, showing up to work so casually.

When Zayn finally tumbles out, Harry’s already ready to go, wearing just what Zayn knew he would. He’s clasping a watch around his wrist because the only jewelry Harry will wear at any given moment, is his wedding band, a thin silver band that’s so simple compared to the gaudy rings that he’s putting on now, almost like costume jewelry.

Zayn’s still in his towel as Harry grabs everything that he needs, shoving his wallet and phone into his pockets, and then twirls his keys around on his fingers before he approaches Zayn. He kisses him on the cheek until Zayn turns his face so he can kiss him properly, a soft brush of their lips.

“I’ll see you tonight?” Zayn nods. “Dinner’s at seven,” he calls, already walking away.

Zayn stares to his retreating back, watching his husband go.

//

Zayn works at a building for a press relations company on the edge of the city. It’s tall, thick steel beams supporting concrete floors and opaque windows. There’s a balding man at security that doesn’t look up from phone as Zayn walks passed him. He bypasses the elevators completely, walking down a hallway that requires he scan his I.D. for entry. The door beeps after a second, granting him entry, and then he heads down because Zayn doesn’t work for a PR company.

Zayn works for one of the largest secret spy organizations in the world, operating outside of the government. No one knows that, except for the others at his agency, not even his husband.

Zayn plans on keeping it that way.

When Zayn pushes open the door, there are people mulling about, some rushing around with thick file folders, case information that they’ll need to examine intensely before moving forward, with others talk into their headsets, giving clear and concise instructions to the people on the other end, because their lives literally depend on it.

Niall is sitting at his desk, in their shared little corner, his fingers moving wildly on his keyboard as he types furiously, cursing something under his breath.

“Morning, Niall,” Zayn says, leaning against the edge of his desk.

Niall waves him off, not even looking at Zayn. Zayn laughs, pulling away from Niall’s desk to sit at his own just a few paces away. His desk is simple, with nothing on it, no pictures of his family like other people tend to have. There’s a computer, a cup filled with pens, and his own personal printer, one that Harry bought him when he complained about having to stand at the copier, because of a course a bunch of fucking spies can’t have multiple copy machines. Not that Harry knows that little part of it.

“Why is it,” Niall snaps, pushing away from his desk so his chair spins and he’s facing Zayn, “that whenever you and Louis work together, there’s always some giant fucking mess that I have to deal with?”

Zayn grins at him, drumming his fingers against the top of his desk. “Morning, Niall,” he repeats, because he knows exactly what Niall is talking about, the little fiasco in Tampa where Louis accidentally blew up a restaurant that was still being built, which means no one was inside, luckily enough, but it also means Niall is taking the necessary steps to funnel money to the builders that can’t be traced back to them. Collateral damage, it happens.

“Morning,” Niall sighs, anger seeping out of him slowly. He turns back to his computer, checking whatever is on screen.

“Where is Louis, anyway? You make him walk?”

“He’s in Dallas.”

Zayn frowns, scratching his jaw, hearing the stubble underneath his fingers. He should have shaved this morning. “When did he get an assignment?”

“He left in the middle of the night,” Niall explains and Zayn suddenly notices how tired he looks, like Niall crawled out of bed with him and came straight to the agency to do his job here, so he’d be here whenever Louis needs him.

Niall’s good about that, always being there for Zayn and Louis when they’re out on jobs and they need an extra set of eyes. Plus, he worries. Above everything else, Niall worries deeply when they’re out of town, working cases where backup could take hours to get to them.

“What’s the assignment?”

“Some guy that’s been handing out guns like they’re fucking candy.”

“If he’s going after someone like that, should he have gone alone?”

“He’ll be fine,” Niall says, looking up at Zayn like he’s just insulted him personally.

Zayn holds his hands up to pacify him, to let him know that he didn’t mean it like that, but Louis is his friend, and he’s one of the few that he has that knows him, that understands him, and is there for him through everything, after difficult jobs when Zayn’s hands are shaking and he needs a minute. So if Louis is walking into a dangerous situation, he wants to know about it, because he’ll be on a flight to Dallas before anyone can so much as blink.

“It’s just some fucking Texan,” Niall says, like he hates the word, like, he hates them, and most people do. “He’s got a rap sheet as long as I am tall, but he’s also pretty dumb, so Louis should be home by dinner tonight, at the earliest.”

“And at the latest?”

Niall sighs, sliding a stack of files towards Zayn. “Pick one, keep yourself busy. Some of us actually have work to do.”

Zayn snorts, grabbing the one off the top. He flips it open and sees that it’s an in-town job, not something that Zayn usually takes because it’s not easy sneaking around his own city. If someone were to see him, his cover could be blown, and if Harry were to spot his car somewhere, he’d ask questions that Zayn can’t and won’t answer, but when he sees the guy’s description, how he’s got kids, fucking kids, out onto the street slinging drugs for him, Zayn thinks he can take care of this one.

“You always give me these files,” he says, looking up at Niall. “The in-towns. I’ll have to think of something to say to Harry, to do it tonight.”

“Six years,” Niall mumbles, because it’s his job to know the details, though Zayn feels a familiar flare of annoyance that Niall knows how long they’ve been together and Harry can never seem to get it right. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Could wait until his next trip, if he’s going out of town soon.”

Zayn sighs, shaking his head. “No, he’s home, as far I know.”

//

Dinner is ready at seven, just like Harry promised it would be, just like it always is. He has the table set prettily, with place settings and cloth napkins, candles lit in the middle, and it’s always a bit much for dinner when it’s just the two of them, but Zayn’s used to it by now. He knows that Harry loves to light candles anyway, and Zayn thinks he just enjoys the dramatics of having a fully set table.

“Is there any time for me to take a shower?” Zayn asks, wanting to loosen the knots in his shoulders.

“No,” Harry answers without looking up, lifting a lid on a pot to peek at the inside of it, twirling a wooden spoon around before he brings it to his mouth tasting whatever it is.

“Well,” Zayn sighs, dropping his keys and his wallet on the counter. “I guess I’ll wait then.”

Harry finally turns to look at him and smiles, wearing a frilly pink apron that wraps around his neck and his stomach, with a ruffle trim that he found at a flea market. The name Karen is embroidered in white, surrounded by flowers and a little bee. Something about the sight as Zayn’s shoulders relaxing, the familiarity of it, of coming home to Harry wearing that ridiculous thing as he stands in front of the stove.

Zayn smiles back at him and leans forward to kiss him like he always does, short and sweet.

Zayn waits while Harry loads up their plates, placing everything just the way he wants it before he nods, letting Zayn carry them over to the table while he goes about getting glasses of wine. Red from a bottle they bought when they were in Spain, stuffed into the bottom of their suitcases as they swore to customs that they had nothing to claim.

“This looks great,” Zayn says, reaching for the salt until Harry slaps his hand.

“It’s already salted,” he says and then smiles. “And thank you. I found the recipe on the cooking blog that I liked. I had to modify it a bit, since she said to season the chicken with salt and pepper, and I knew you’d throw a fit if that happened.”

“I wouldn’t throw a fit.” He’d make a face, poke at it like it was a science experiment gone wrong, but he’d eat it, and tell Harry that it was wonderful anyway, because he hasn’t complained about a dish since the time Harry made an eggplant pasta that was so awful and so spicy that Zayn’s stomach hurt for an entire evening, which never happens, and he complained so much that Harry hasn’t tried to buy eggplant since. Any dish in comparison to that doesn’t warrant a complaint.

“Maybe. How was work?”

“Good. I got a new client today,” Zayn lies. It’s easy.

Harry nods. “That’s been happening a lot lately. Are you going to get a bonus or some kind of raise?”

Zayn shakes his head, wiping his mouth. “I don’t think so. It’s just the season for it, with the new fiscal year starting. Not all of them will stay with me,” he says. “Sometimes they decide that I’m not what they’re looking for anymore. It happens. How was your day?”

“Uneventful,” answers Harry, chewing on his food thoughtfully for a moment. “I spent the afternoon looking at some stuff for the house. I think I want to make a couple changes.”

“Like?”

“Like a new couch, for one. The cushions are losing their firmness, so I feel like I’m sinking into it. Like I need the fire department to pull me out of it.”

“So buy new cushions.”

Harry makes a face and shakes his head. “No, I found one online that I think will better match our curtains, but we might need to change out some of the paintings on the wall. I’ll have to take a peek through the basement, see what we have stored down there before I decide if we should order a few new ones.”

Zayn holds, folding his hands under his chin. “I ordered a new rug, for the entryway, so maybe you should wait for that before you buy anything.”

Harry stops, mouth closing and fork slowly lowering back towards his plate. He looks at Zayn, studying him carefully for a second before he says, “You ordered a new rug? I never heard about this, or saw it, for that matter.”

“I saw it and liked it, so I bought it. Why? What’s the problem?”

“No problem,” Harry says, lifting his knife to saw at his chicken. He’s angry, and Zayn sighs, knowing that he’ll have to deal with that comment in some way later on.

After dinner, Zayn does the dishes, scrubbing every pot and pan, every plate and utensil, tossing them into the dishwasher before he heads upstairs for a shower.

Zayn doesn’t know what he’s going to tell Harry, how he’s going to find a way to leave the house. He has twenty-four hours to complete his assignment, to get this drug trafficker before time is up, and he needs to take care of this tonight when he has the protection of night to help him. He only hopes that Harry’s not prepping for an argument in his head, waiting for Zayn to step out of line so he can take out his frustration about the rug.

Zayn steps out of the bathroom in his towel and stops, taking in Harry sitting on the edge of their bed, texting someone. He’s fully dressed but not in the clothes he was wearing earlier and not in the clothes he’d sleep in, if he wore clothes to bed. Harry typically sleeps naked, they both do, even if they haven’t had sex, and when either of them does decide to sleep in clothes, it’s typically just a pair of boxers, maybe a basic shirt. And Zayn knows every pair of Harry’s underwear intimately, since he washes them every week, folds them, and tucks them into Harry’s drawers. Hell, he’s bought almost all of them, and what Harry’s wearing, it’s definitely not boxers and one of his sleep shirts, it’s going out clothes.

“You’re leaving?”

Harry looks up at him, blinking slowly as he shoves his phone into his pocket. “Yeah,” he says, standing. “Barnes wants to me to head into work, and you know how he is.” Harry rolls his eyes and shrugs, as if to say, what can he do?

Zayn nods and watches him, feeling like he should feel relieved. Mostly he’s worried. It’s a silly thought, but sometimes Zayn wonders if Harry has some boyfriend across town that he goes to see on nights like this, nights where the air feels different between them. And because even after six years, it’s never made sense to Zayn why Harry, a salesman, needs to spend so much time at the office at night.

But who is he to have suspicions when he’s about to head out and deal with some drug trafficker across town?

“Have fun,” he says, moving towards his dresser. “Call if you’re going to be too late.”

“I will,” promises Harry, already stepping out of their bedroom and heading on his way.

//

There’s a club on the other side of town, a hotspot for illegal activity. Zayn’s followed a few assignments through here, sat at the bar, watching them. It’s on the outskirts of the seedy part of town, where cops drive by slowly, taking their time to inspect everyone that they see.

Zayn waits until they roll by before he slips down an alley, walking with his head down. There are two people outside of the club right now, a kid taking out the trash wearing a ball cap. He’s got headphones in his ears so he doesn’t hear Zayn approaching, but the other guy does, he looks up at Zayn, his gaze calculating but he’s cocky, doesn’t think that anyone there would be after him because he believes that these streets are his, like he has control over them and people respect him, and Zayn doesn’t think about it when he stops to ask him for a cigarette, legs bouncing like he’s craving one desperately. And he is, he always is, ever since he quit years ago, but if Harry smells even an ounce of smoke on him, he’ll kill him.

When the guy rolls his eyes, reaching down into his pockets, Zayn pulls the gun out of his pocket, silencer on, and presses it against the guy's chest and shoots, keeping his hand on his chest so that Zayn can help him down on the ground, tucking him in the dumpster.

It’ll look like a street death; nothing professional, like, one of his men did it. Zayn slips out of the alley just as quickly as he came. It’ll be a while before anyone finds him unless they’re smart, but Zayn doesn’t think that he was. It’s one less person for them to worry about, one less person pulling kids out of fucking schools and ruining their lives, ruining their futures.

Zayn texts Niall, just a simple done to let him know that it’s taken care of and he’s safe. Niall will know what he’s talking about, he always does.

Harry’s home when Zayn gets back, throwing his clothes into the hamper they keep in their bathroom, right next to the door. It’s wicker and sometimes their clothes snag on it, pulling at loose threads until Harry’s kicking at it, yelling at it to show a little respect before he donates it or worse, throws it out. So far, the hamper is winning.

“Where’d you go?” Harry asks, eyes tracking Zayn.

“We were out of coffee,” Zayn explains, pulling his shirt over his head. “I figured I’d get some now, so you wouldn’t have to do it in the morning.”

Harry nods. “Oh.” He steps forward, kissing Zayn on the cheek, muttering “good night,” before he moves towards the bed.

Zayn watches him beat the pillows, trying to get them fluffed in the way that he likes. He wonders how they got here, how they got to the point where Harry doesn’t look him in the eyes when he says good night. Where they spend dinner together before they’re both creeping off to other places, and lying to each other.

Zayn brushes his teeth and washes his face, rubbing cold water into his skin and wishing that he could take a bath, just immerse himself into the water and then watch the night disappear down the drain. Instead, he finishes getting undressed and then crawls into bed next to Harry, grabbing his book off the nightstand.

“Are you going to keep the light on tonight?” asks Harry, looking over his shoulder.

Zayn looks up from his book, brows raised. “Yes, I’m reading.”

“Okay,” Harry sighs, breathing out through his nose. “All right. Night.”

Zayn doesn’t say anything, just stares at the pages in front of him. The letters bleed together and he reads the same line over and over and over again until Harry is snoring, soft breathy sounds that’ll get deeper as sleep pulls him in further.

//

Zayn folds his hands over his lap and breathes out harshly through his nose, trying to get comfortable. Across from him, Dr. Astina smiles and waits as patiently as ever, legs folded with her hands in her lap, resting on her floral skirt. She was kind enough to get him in the same day, saying she had a spot available at two, and Zayn made sure to get here at fifteen ‘til. He thought he knew what he was doing when he called, but now? Now he’s not so sure.

Fifteen minutes has gone by and Zayn feels like he’s starting to itch. Itching to get out this office and back into his car, itching to say _something_ , itching to call Harry and find out if it’s him, if it’s the business trips and the late nights, the _lies_ , itching to get answers to questions he can never ask, not without blowing his cover, because these lies, every lie that he’s ever told is to keep Harry _safe_ , but that doesn’t stop the hitch in his breath when thinks that he might be the reason for his failing marriage.

“I think there’s something wrong with my marriage,” Zayn finally says, squinting at the floor before he drags his gaze to Dr. Astina. She’s looking at him, just as patiently as she was when he was silent.

“Is that why you came to see me?”

Zayn nods. “I feel like there’s a gulf between us.”

“Explain that, please. Or, try to.”

“I don’t know. It’s just… sometimes I feel like we’re stuck. I feel like we’re trapped where we are, in this rut, and we don’t know how to get out of it. We’re good at talking about everything but that, but sometimes it feels like we’re keeping things from each other.”

Dr. Astina hums and nods, unfolding her legs so that she can cross her ankles. “What kind of things would you be keeping from each other?”

“Secrets, you know. Everyone has secrets. I know I do, so I’m sure he does. He’s always felt like an open book, though, which I think is why I’m so worried about it. The other night I thought—“ Zayn sighs and shakes his head, digging his thumb into the arm of the chair, feeling his nose tingle for a second and he blinks back the emotion, swallowing. “I thought maybe he was having an affair.”

“Why didn’t you schedule a follow-up appointment, if you were worried about your marriage?”

“Kind of feels like we’re throwing in the towel.”

“No, you’re doing the opposite,” she explains. “You’re letting the other know that you care and you want this to work. You’re acknowledging that maybe you could use a little help. It’s not for everyone, we can all admit that, but coming here doesn’t mean you’re giving up.”

Zayn nods, because he understands what she’s saying, but he doesn’t want to think that he and Harry are here, like they’re exactly where everyone thought they would be when they first got married.

“Maybe we should schedule another appointment.”

“How do you think Harry will feel about that? Do you think he’ll want to come here with you?”

“I don’t know,” Zayn shrugs. “I guess I won’t know until I talk to him,” he lies, not wanting to say that together they made the decision to not come again, but they’re drowning, and Zayn’s running out of ideas on what can save them.

“Let’s go back to the secrets. What kind of things would you be worried about your husband finding out?”

Zayn wets his lips, glancing at the painting on her wall. It’s a modern piece made of color and line, thick black spaces intercepted by color, and Zayn wonders what he doesn’t want his husband to know, the laundry list of things that Harry will never know. Zayn turns back to Dr. Astina and smiles, content to sit in silence for the next forty minutes to avoid answering the question.

//

“Where the hell have you been?” Louis crows when he spots Zayn, climbing over the side of the building and landing with a thud on the roof. He unclips the safety harness, letting it drop to the ground.

“I had an appointment. I didn’t know you’d take a job you couldn’t handle on your own,” he laughs, shoving his earpiece in, clicking it on and dropping down next to Louis.

Louis snorts, lifting a pair of binoculars and staring into the building across the street. Zayn grabs the file sticking out of his body, flips the folder open and reads. It asks for surveillance at this point. All they need to do is monitor the guy and report the information back to their boss before he makes any decisions.

“How was Dallas?” Zayn asks, digging through Louis’ bags for an extra set of binoculars because he came in blind, unsure what they were dealing with, but knowing that Louis would have everything they need, and he does, a full supply of everything that was probably packed by Niall, sneaking in things after every time Louis zipped it shut.

“As thrilling as any place in Texas is, but the job was easy enough. Not really, like, the easiest that I had, since the guy was a fucking runner, but it’s taken care of.” Zayn nods, his eyes on the guy they’re watching. He’s in some kind of meeting, wearing a suit that looks two sizes too big. “How’s everything been here lately?” Louis asks, unable to keep silent. “How’s everything at home?”

“Fine,” Zayn answers. “Harry’s been out of town for the last three days, but he’s due back tonight. We’re supposed to have drinks at a neighbor’s. I don’t know why he made plans when he’ll have been home for an hour, but.” Zayn rolls his eyes because the Anderson’s are nosy and Zayn doesn’t feel like spending the night dodging questions.

“Oh, that’s right, I forgot you live an alternate life in suburbia.”

Zayn pulls away from the binoculars to glare at Louis, making sure that he sees the unimpressed look on his face. “Don’t start.”

“Don’t start? I think it’s fucking hilarious. The only way it could be better was if that husband of yours was a pretty house-husband. It’d go with his love of baked goods and curtain shopping.”

“You know,” says Zayn, “not all of us are fortunate enough to marry a coworker, so do you think you can shut the fuck up?”

“No, I can’t, because like I said, it’s fucking hilarious, you marrying _him_ of all people.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“How about this,” Niall’s voice filters in their earpieces, “if you two don’t shut the fuck up, you’ll both be divorcees and then you won’t have to worry about whom the other is married to.”

Louis snorts. “Yeah, you going to forge the papers?”

“If you don’t do your fucking job, yeah.”

“That’s why I married a pretty little house-husband slash salesman who loves baked goods and curtain shopping,” Zayn sneers. “He can’t threaten me with divorce on the job.”

Louis laughs, flipping Zayn off before lifting the binoculars up to his eyes again. “We got movement, let’s go.”

Zayn nods, jumping up and clipping the safety harness back on. Niall chimes in their ears that he’s hacking the guy’s phone to get his GPS and he’ll send them to coordinates when he has them.

//

Harry is in the shower when Zayn gets home. There’s steam billowing, fogging up the mirror because he can never remember to turn the fan on. Zayn has to scrub at it with a hand towel so he can see himself. He looks decent enough, could stand to have a shower, but he doesn't really feel like. Instead, he runs a bit more product through his hair, getting it back into place so he looks presentable. He finds his razor and decides to shave, thinking, _fuck it_ , he might as well so he blends in with all of his other neighbors, smooth faced.

The pipes squeak when Harry shuts the water off, cursing at the last blast of freezing water before it disappears.

“Hey, you’re home,” Harry says, smiling as he wraps the towel around his waist. He makes his way over to Zayn, leaning against his back and kissing the cheek that’s already been shaved.

“I should say that to you,” Zayn replies, flicking bits of shaving cream into the sink. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Me too. It was such a long flight, some guy tried to get into it with one of the flight attendants. It was awful.”

Zayn nods, turning to watch Harry move out of the room. He doesn’t ask how Harry got home since he told Zayn not to bother picking him up, that he had a ride. Zayn wonders who that was, who it was that got to greet his husband at the airport, who got to listen to him tell countless stories about some of the other salespeople at the conference they were at because it wasn’t him. He was in a little Toyota following some guy through the city, learning his habits and behaviors, and thinking about how he’s going to talk to Harry about seeing Dr. Astina again.

Zayn waits until they’re both in the bathroom, Harry rubbing lotion into his skin and Zayn is brushing his teeth, shaving cream washed off his freshly shaved skin before he even thinks about it. There never really seems like the right time to announce to his husband that he thinks they should go to therapy together again, to work out whatever problems they’re having. Ones that are swept under the rug so well that sometimes Zayn feels like he’s imagined them all.

“I’ve been thinking about something lately,” Zayn says when Harry caps his lotion, setting it down on the sink and reaching for another one of the long line of products he has by the sink.

“Yeah? What about?”

Zayn takes a deep breath, holding it in his chest for three seconds before he lets it out and says, “About seeing Dr. Astina again.”

That has Harry pausing for a split second, his hands still before he continues doing what he was doing. Zayn feels nervous, all of a sudden, unsure of why he had to bring this up in the first place, especially when they both agreed that they weren’t going to go anymore.

“I know we talked about how we weren’t going to go again,” Zayn continues when Harry doesn’t say anything. “But I went alone and talked to her a bit, just about some stuff, and I think it might be good for us. I know you weren’t very enthusiastic about it last time, but maybe, I don’t know, maybe you could try it again.” He doesn’t say for me, because he wants Harry to want to do this, to want to do it for himself, for their marriage, but not because Zayn is hitting below the belt a bit.

Harry looks at him, setting whatever he’s just rubbed into the skin of his face on the counter. His fingers linger on it, fiddling with it before he turns his gaze away from Zayn, reaching for another product and Zayn feels the air leave his lungs slowly and heavily because he was sure that this would happen. He knew that Harry was going to say no. Zayn doesn’t know why he brought it up in the first place. Maybe he can take it back, can act like it doesn’t really matter to him like it was just an idea he had.

“All right,” Harry agrees, startling Zayn.

“Wait, seriously?”

Harry shrugs. “Yeah. I’m still not really a huge fan of her and her questioning, I think she leaves a lot to be desired, but I went to see her the other day as well, alone.”

“You did?” Zayn asks, frowning.

“Yeah, we talked for a bit. I don’t see what it could hurt, going back there. Maybe she’ll have better questions than some number game.”

Zayn has to fight the urge to ask Harry why he feels like they need this, what Harry has to complain about, and what they talked about during his session. He wants to ask why Harry isn’t worried about what Zayn talked about when he went in to see Dr. Astina by himself. Because no matter how much better Zayn feels about having mentioned it and Harry agreeing to it, things are still weird between them, stunted and so odd that Zayn doesn’t know what to do besides let it go.

As it turns out, when Harry came home from the airport, he had enough time to bake a pie for the neighbors. He carries it over in a glass dish that they’ll have to remember to get back at the end of the night. But it’s sure to be eaten, with how many people they can see in the Anderson’s window as they walk up the drive together, silently, way more than Zayn had anticipated having to deal with tonight.

“Harry, Zayn,” June chirps when she opens the door, grinning widely at them.

“Hi June,” Harry greets, stepping in and placing a kiss on her cheek. She tries to take the pie away but Harry pulls it out of her grasps, shaking his head. “No, you have guests, I’ll take care of this. Where do you want it?”

“In the dining room,” she says, shaking her head as Harry walks away. “And Zayn, how are you?”

“Wonderful,” he says, leaning in for a hug. “How about yourself? Your home looks lovely, the remodel you did in the living room, wow.”

“Thank you,” she beams, grabbing Zayn by the arm to pull him into the house. “Mary’s around here somewhere.”

“I’ll have to find her,” he says, but she’s already walking away. Harry gets angry every time Zayn says it because he and June get along so well, but she really is a royal asshole. She’s always turned her nose up at Zayn, and one wild fucking guess what that reason is, but part of blending in and not drawing attention to himself means tolerating his nosey, snobby neighbors. Because isn’t that the suburbs? A bunch of people pretending to care about one another, when really all they give a shit about is learning everything they can about you so they can talk about it behind your back to their spouses, to their friends over brunch like your hardships are nothing more than a conversation starter for other people.

So Zayn doesn’t really like June all that much, but her wife is okay.

Zayn finds her in another room, sitting on a couch. She waves Zayn over, making room for him, even if she has to tell Mark Greenwich from up the street to get drinks so that Zayn can have his spot, because if there’s one thing all of the neighbors can agree on, it’s that the Greenwich’s are the worst people that their block has seen in ages.

They’re talking about the Martin’s new baby, a little boy they named Sam that’s asleep in her arms, dozing while his mom tells stories about how he’s just the sweetest little thing and he sleeps all the time, but she knows he’ll be raising hell shortly. And then it’s on to the Anderson’s remodeling project, and how June wants to do the upstairs bathroom next, but Mary thinks they should try the kitchen. Zayn stays silent, except to laugh when someone suggests that he and Harry must have the ideal marriage if neither of them ever have a bad thing to say about the other.

“I don’t know, I did order a rug without letting him see it. Maybe I’ll have a story for next time when it finally arrives.”

Mark Greenwich positively cackles at that and Zayn can feel as everyone sighs at the same time before reaching for their drinks.

“I need to use the bathroom,” Anita says and then she’s sitting up, shifting until a little baby is outstretched towards Zayn. “Can you hold him while I’m gone? Ben’s in the other room, and I don’t feel like finding him. He won’t wait up, he just ate a little bit ago.”

“Uh,” Zayn stumbles over his words, unable to get his brain to even remember any before Anita places the baby in his hold, thanking him before she rushes off.

Zayn stares at the baby, bouncing him in his arms. He wonders what it would be like to have this life, to go to a party with his newborn baby and pass him off to someone else so that he could run to the bathroom, because his husband is in the other room, and he doesn’t really feel like finding him just so he can pee. The baby shifts in his sleep, little arms stretching out before dropping back down, like he doesn’t even notice that he’s been transferred to some stranger.

Zayn looks up and sees Harry standing on the other side of the room, leaning against the doorframe and watching him. It’s like a splash of cold water, because they’ve been married for six years, and for all of their talks about adopting, Zayn knows that he’s the reason they don’t actually have this life, the life where they pass their babies off to other people so they can use the toilet at a gathering, a life where they’re even parents, to begin with. It’s his fault that they don’t have that. He’s the reason that Harry is looking at him that way, so what right does Zayn have to fantasize about something that he sabotaged? He doesn’t, and he knows it.

//

The warehouse district is a hub for illicit activity, so when Niall notifies him that his newest assignment has been hanging around there all morning, Zayn can’t help but laugh. He’s spent all morning reviewing his file and every single part of the guy is predictable.

There’s a couple cars parked outside, all black with tinted windows, unmarked, and Zayn pulls in behind a different building, not wanting to draw attention to himself. He shoves his earpiece in and hears Niall’s voice letting him know that the guy is still there. A quick in and out is all this is going to be. Zayn will have enough time to finish the job and head back to work, maybe even get home earlier than he usually does.

Zayn slips in through a window, silent when his feet touch the floor. He sticks to the shadows, moving along slowly, listening and trying to place the man. He can’t hear him but then he sees movement, quick and in front of a storage container. Zayn moves towards it quickly, wanting to get out of the way in case his target’s seen him, but there his target is, sitting in the open with a drink in his hand a stack of cash in front of him. He’s loading it into a bag, and Zayn frowns, crouching down on the ground.

Someone is slipping out of the showers, gun raised and Zayn blinks and the guy is slumping over, sliding out of his chair, dead, and the stranger is slipping out of the building, rushing out. Zayn is fucking furious, chasing after him because this is _his_ assignment. He’s put his name on it and that means everyone in his agency should have known to stay the fuck away from this.

Zayn follows the stranger outside until he sees him. It’s perfectly clear in the sunlight who the other agent is, all Zayn needs to see are his fucking ankles hanging out of the bottoms of his pants as he bends into a trunk, shoving the bag of money he’s snatched inside of it. It’s the only body in the world that Zayn knows better than his own, better than the back of his hand, but he waits until he sees Harry’s head pop out, shoving those Gucci sunglasses on his face like he didn’t just put a bullet through someone’s head.

It feels like the air is being forcibly removed from his lungs like someone has reached inside of him and is squeezing. His world is crashing down on him; everything he thought he knew is a lie. He doesn’t know that man loading up his car, not in any way, least of all any way that he thought he did. Because Harry shouldn’t be here, he shouldn’t be walking out of some fucking warehouse where a guy was hoping to make a deal, and he shouldn’t be dropping bullets into a gun, and Zayn can’t—He can’t breathe.

Reaching around blindly, Zayn pulls his earpiece out of his ear, shoving it into his pocket. He grabs his phone and dials a familiar number, watching and waiting, because his mind is playing tricks on him. This isn’t real. Harry is going to answer and it’s not going to be…whoever _that_ is. But the Harry he’s looking at is reaching for his phone and Zayn sees as he struggles to make a decision before he answers.

“Hey, babe,” Harry’s voice says in his ear, as Harry leans against the car across the way, looking out at the other buildings.

Zayn breathes slowly, counting the seconds and remembering that he’s a fucking agent and he shouldn’t be losing it like this, not over anything, not even his lying husband. “Hey, when are you going to be home?”

“Soon. I’m wrapping things up now and then I’ll be on my way.”

“Okay. I’ll have dinner waiting for you.”

“Can’t wait, love you.”

Zayn hangs up instead of answering and sits there, watching as Harry shoves his phone back into his pocket and gets in the car. He sits there, watching as Harry drives off. He wants to head back inside and see if his target is still lying there, dead, or if everything has been rolled away like a set of a movie.

But he can’t. He doesn’t have time for that, so he grabs his shit and gets out of there, rushing back towards his car so he can get to work and get his actual car and head home to Harry. It doesn’t take him long, and he has more than enough time to stop and grab take out, but all just feels like he’s on autopilot, like he’s going through the motions and doing everything that he should be doing. If he stops, then he’ll have time to think, and if he spends any time thinking then he’ll have to think about the fact that Harry killed someone today and he more than likely works for an enemy agency, which forces Zayn to make decisions that he doesn’t want to fucking think about right now, when his hands are shaking as he’s warming the food up and setting it down on plates.

Zayn can’t think about what this means for his marriage or his life, so he makes plates, he sets the table, and he lights the candles that Harry loves, because why not loosen him up for a confrontation that they’re surely going to have.

Harry comes up looking loose and happy, smiling at Zayn as Zayn stands up slowly, hoping Harry didn’t see the gun he’s got hidden under the table.

“Do you think there’s any time for me to shower?

“Make it quick,” Zayn says, knowing that the food will be cold by the time that Harry gets out because takeout is always cold after more than five minutes, so he heads over, turns the oven on so sets the plates inside so they can keep warm and waits.

Zayn pours them each a glass of wine, setting the glasses down silently and carefully, wanting to make sure that he’s aware of each and every one of Harry’s movements in the house. He wants to know when he steps in and out of the shower, when he moves from their bathroom to their bedroom when he descends down the stairs. Zayn doesn’t want to miss any of it because he doesn’t know if Harry saw him.

Zayn doesn’t think that Harry did. If he had, then he thinks this would all be playing out very differently, which means Harry doesn’t know a thing. And if Harry doesn’t know anything, then a confrontation would blow Zayn’s cover, and it’s the only upper hand that he has right now.

“Fuck,” Zayn sighs, digging the gun out from under the table and putting it back where he keeps it hidden in case of emergencies. He palms his face tiredly. He’s not going to react to this tonight. Zayn’s going to figure out who Harry works for and what’s actually going on before does anything without thinking. He’s going to do his job.

Harry’s the rash one, not him.

“All right,” Zayn says, taking a deep breath. He pulls the plates out of the oven when he hears the shower shut off. He can do this. Six years he’s been keeping secrets from Harry, what makes this one any different?

//

Zayn heads into work early that morning, rising when Harry does for his run so that he can slip out. He doesn’t want to see his husband right now, he _can’t_ , not when he was awake all night, tossing and turning, staring at Harry’s sleeping form and wondering whom the hell this man is.

Niall’s already there, of course he is, booting up his computer with his feet propped on his desk. There are a couple others as well, people who never left last night or came in the middle of the night or arrived early, like Zayn and Niall have, to do whatever they need to do. Niall looks surprised when he sees Zayn, opening his mouth to offer a greeting before he swallows it down, his brow furrowing in confusion.

Zayn stomps over, pace brisk, and he grabs Niall’s chair, pulling it away from the desk until his feet land on the floor with a thump. He motions for Niall to follow him, and he doesn’t turn around to check that he is when he leads him down a narrow hallway.

“Everything okay?” Niall asks, checking behind him before he lets Zayn pull him into a corner.

“I need you to do something for me, a favor, and I need you to be quiet about it. You can’t even tell Louis.”

Niall looks confused, his eyes scanning over Zayn, taking every inch of him. “Okay, yeah. Of course, what do you need?”

“I need you to find out who Harry works for.”

“You don’t already know that?”

“I thought I did,” Zayn says, laughing hollowly, as he rubs a palm across his face. “I thought I knew. I fucking swore that I knew, but he was there yesterday. Harry was _there_. We had the same target, the same assignment. He was there and he’s the one who took it from me.”

“You can’t be—“

“Serious? Because I am,” assures Zayn, “and I need to know who he works for.”

Niall looks at Zayn like he still doesn't believe any of this like even he can’t believe that Harry would be creeping around some warehouse to kill someone, but he must find the answers to his doubts in Zayn’s expression but he nods. “Yeah, I’ll find out everything that I can.”

“As soon as possible, okay?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Zayn nods, wetting his lips. “I’ll be back in a few hours. I took the morning off for something, but please do this. Top priority; don’t let anything get in the way. And don’t let anyone find out, please. I can’t,” Zayn’s voice breaks and he swallows, shaking his head. “I can’t have anyone else finding out about this. Not right away at least.”

“Yeah. Zayn, you know I’ll do this for you,” Niall says, and Zayn knows that means he’ll do anything for him. He always has. Niall has his back. Zayn trusts Niall with his life, and he knows that if anyone can find out anything about Harry, it’s Niall, and if he says that he won’t tell anyone about it, then Zayn knows that he can trust him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Niall sighs, looking frustrated for a moment before he shakes his head, gripping Zayn’s arm when he tries to walk away. “I’m being serious here. Are you fucking okay?”

Zayn stares down the hallway for a second before he looks back at Niall. He shakes his head, just barely, just enough for Niall to see the movement. “Just find out what you can. I have somewhere else to be.”

Niall nods his head, stepping out of the way to allow Zayn to move past him. He knows that there’s nothing he can do besides doing what Zayn asked him to do, and that’s all Zayn wants. He’s not going to let this…this thing gets in his head and ruins him until he knows all of the facts. When everything is laid out on the table for him, then he’ll decide how he feels. And what he should do.

//

“I’m glad to see you both here again,” Dr. Astina says, shutting the door behind them and striding towards her chair. She smiles at them when she sits down, smoothing out her pants. “How has everything been lately?”

“It’s been okay,” Harry answers. “I was out of town for a few days, for work, so we spent some time apart.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Yeah. We’re both always traveling a lot, always have.”

Dr. Astina smiles and nods, looking towards Zayn and he swallows, tearing his gaze away. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say now that he’s here, he didn’t last time until it felt like the words had to be said right then and there, otherwise he’d never say them.

“Last time you were here, I learned that you married fairly shortly after meeting, and, Harry, you expressed a bit of concern that I would make a comment about that fact.”

“Most people do,” replies Zayn, turning to look at her. “They’re surprised by it, always, but it’s a bit of a coin toss to know which way they’re going to lean, if they’re going to be surprised because we’ve been together for as long as we have, or surprised that we’d jump into things so early.”

“Do either of you feel that same concern?”

“I don’t.” Zayn turns his head to look at Harry to see that he’s shaking his head, so he doesn’t worry about that. “We were fine then,” Zayn confesses. “Our relationship, it was fine.”

“So it wasn’t until recently that you both had any concerns?”

Next to him, Harry sighs and shifts in his seat, fidgeting. “It’s not easy, to think that we need some stranger to help us. It’s not easy to talk with your partner, to suggest that you want to try something like this, it feels like failure.”

“There’s no failure in coming to therapy.”

“It’s not the therapy,” Harry says, rubbing his palm along his forehead before he sweeps some of his hair out of his face. “It’s _why_ we’re here in the first place, like, we don’t know how to make it on our own when no one else seems to be having these issues.”

“The important thing to know is that other people go through this,” Dr. Astina says. “All the time. And you’re here, and you’re working on your marriage, and you’re not going to give up on each other.”

Zayn nods, chewing on his lip. He stares down at the floor because it’s harder and easier now that he knows the truth. It’s easier because he knows that he’s not the only one to blame for the growing divide between them, because they both have secrets. And Harry’s secret isn’t that he’s sneaking around behind Zayn’s back in another relationship. Instead, he’s sneaking around doing his _job;_ a job that they both share. But it’s harder because Zayn can’t go out of his way to tell Harry, _hey, we both do this for a living_ or _I’m worried about us_ or _please don’t leave me when you find out the truth_.

They work in the same profession but Zayn doesn’t know anything about Harry, maybe he never did, and it scares him. He’s scared out of his mind, and right now, it’s hard to focus on anything other than Niall at work right now, digging around trying to find everything he can about Harry.

“How about we go back to the issues you mentioned,” Dr. Astina says, shifting. “What issues do you think that your marriage is having?”

Zayn and Harry go silent, looking at each other out of the corners of their eyes. Neither one of them knows what to say to that, and it’s like Zayn told her last time, there’s a gulf between them, an entire ocean filled with all the things that they’re not saying, whether they want to or not. It’s been building up for six years, growing, and neither of them knows how to get out it, and only Zayn knows what could possibly be filling the gap between them.

//

“So what did you think?” Harry asks, twirling his keys around his finger. “Did you like her better this time around?”

“Her questions were better,” Zayn answers, staring ahead at their cars parked next to each other. “You were pretty vocal this time. Actually, you were the first time, but you weren’t defending us this time around.”

Harry smiles at him. “She’s still on the other side of town.”

“You have somewhere you need to be?” Zayn sighs, digging his keys out of his pocket, frustrated.

“I need to head back to the office, actually,” he says and Zayn knows that he’s resisting looking at his watch, mostly because Zayn fucking hates when he does that when his mind is in thirty different places except where it should be. “I’ll see you at home.” Harry looks at Zayn expectantly and Zayn nods, accepting the kiss Harry places on his cheek.

Zayn follows Harry to their cars, watching him through the window as Harry fits the key in and starts the engine, slipping on his sunglasses, and turning on the radio. He smiles at Zayn, waves before he starts pulling out. The corners of Zayn’s mouth barely twitch as he watches his husband, thumbs tapping against the wheel as he tries to make up his mind.

“Fuck,” Zayn breathes, backing out of his parking space.

Zayn follows behind Harry, sticking several cars back where Harry can’t see him. He runs through two stoplights to make sure that he can’t lose him because there’s not a chance in hell that Harry is going back to whatever made up office building Zayn _thinks_ he works at. Niall will be able to tell Zayn where Harry works, but why wait for that? Why prolong the inevitable when he can get his information directly from the source?

Harry heads back towards the warehouse district, passing where Zayn first found him out and moves further south. He turns onto a road that Zayn knows turns to gravel and heads towards a high fence with barbed wire wrapped around the top. It’s an abandoned factory that hasn’t been used in years. Zayn can’t remember a time when it was in use.

Zayn feels like an asshole, parked on the side of the road and watching as his husband parks behind a building. Zayn feels a hint of worry, like, maybe this abandoned building is where Harry’s company works and there’s going to be a swarm of people surrounding his car in places that he can’t even see until a little red dot appears on his shirt, traveling until it settles on his forehead. But it never happens, instead, Harry comes strolling around the corner, walking across the street like it’s the fucking supermarket he’s heading towards instead of an abandoned building that neither of them has any idea what’s inside.

Zayn wants to call him and tell him not to be a fucking idiot and to get back in his car. He wants to rush across the street and grab Harry by his arm and drag him into safety because what the hell does Harry know about this life? What does Harry know about the warehouse district and that guy he killed yesterday? Nothing, he doesn’t know shit, and Zayn can’t sit in his car and watch as his husband, the man he _loves_ struts into danger.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Zayn mutters under his breath, pulling his gun out from under his seat. “He’s going to fucking die. Serves him right for bailing on me after therapy, should just leave him in there. I’m going to. See if he ever uses all the hot water right before I want to take a shower again.”

But Zayn’s already crossing the street, gun tucked in the back of his jeans. Unlike yesterday, Harry actually sticks to places that won’t get him seen, which is good, because it means Zayn won’t have to add that to the list of dumb shit his husband has done so he can toss it out in their next fight. If they even have another fight. Zayn still doesn’t know what they’re walking into.

When Zayn steps around a corner, Harry is lowering a body to the ground, setting him down gently before he goes.

Zayn checks and he’s alive, so there’s someone important in here that Harry wants, if he’s willing to risk it like this.

Harry takes down three more men before he slips behind something, sliding along the wall and Zayn wants to smack himself in the forehead because a guy is stepping out of a room that Harry’s just passed, and he’s readying to open his mouth and say something before Zayn slips in behind him, hitting him in the back of his head with his gun.

For every man that Harry takes down, three more come crawling out of nowhere for Zayn to take care of. Harry either doesn’t care, or he doesn’t see them.

And this is what Zayn means by Harry not knowing anything about this line of work. There are people everywhere. Anyone can see him and it doesn’t matter how hard he hides or how close he sticks to the wall, which he isn’t doing, because he’s so fucking cocky and Zayn is going to shove those brown boots down his throat if he doesn’t start wearing shoes that don’t click on concrete as he walks.

Harry has no idea what he’s doing. He’s _Harry_. He’s Zayn’s Harry. He’s the guy that likes to buy shirts dad’s wear on vacations. He’s the guy that keeps his boots until they’ve got holes in the bottoms because he loves them _so much_. Harry’s the guy that bakes their neighbors cookies just for the hell of it, who volunteers to babysit when he sees the neighbors with their kids and they look tired. No one ever follows through with it, but he offers. He’s the guy that grows his hair down to his shoulders because he thinks it makes him look like a rock star and he likes that he can do more with it, leave it down and put it up. Hell, he’s the guy that bought glitter boots and wore them nearly every day for a month.

Harry is all of that and more, but he’s not this guy. He doesn’t hurt people. He doesn’t kill them. That’s not him.

Harry isn’t the kind of guy that’s good at a job like this. Look at him, Zayn’s been trailing behind since he pulled out of their therapist’s parking lot, and he hasn’t noticed. He’s missing other people in the building, other people that could kill him before he finds whoever he’s looking for. He doesn’t even fucking notice that Zayn is the one taking them out, knocking them unconscious, willing to kill them to prevent them from killing Harry with their guns aimed at the back of his head.

Zayn’s can’t believe that Harry isn’t seriously wounded, hasn’t come home looking like he could have died. Hell, how hasn’t he died if he’s this sloppy at his job?

It’s a miracle that there hasn’t been a shootout today, Harry shooting as Zayn drags his injured body out to his car in hopes that they can make it to Niall in time. Because that’s what Niall does, he fixes people. He’s good at literally everything, so course he does all the geek work – as Louis calls it.

Zayn doesn’t know how anyone in this business survives without Niall.

When Harry finally does what he came here to do, or so Zayn assumes, since he finally hears a shot and sees Harry slipping out of a door, Zayn breathes a sigh of relief and rushes after him, heading back towards his car. He follows Harry for a bit until it’s clear that he’s heading home early.

Zayn’s shoulders drop in relief, his chest collapsing as the air pours of him quickly. He rests his head on the wheel when he reaches a stoplight and just breathes, feeling the air spreading throughout his chest before breathing it out harshly through his nose. Harry is going to be the death of him, and until Zayn hears back from Niall, he doesn’t know in what way.

//

Zayn’s heart is still racing when he gets into work, rushing through to lobby, and bursting through the lower levels with a kind of manic energy that he hasn’t felt in a long time. Everything inside of him is twisted up, confused, because this is the second mission that he’s seen Harry on, this one more reckless than the last, and Zayn can’t get the image of people creeping up behind Harry with a gun in their hands out of his mind, because Harry could have gotten himself killed.

And Zayn is going to kill him with his bare fucking hands if he sees Harry pull shit like this again. And if someone else does it before he does, then he’s going to do everything he can to get Harry back to life just so he can kill him on his own.

“Zayn,” someone calls and Zayn turns, ready to snap at them to leave him alone for a minute, until he sees it’s Niall and he has a file folder tucked under his arm.

Niall grabs Zayn by the arm, looks around, and then tugs him into a back room down the hallway, away from everyone else.

“What’s going on?” Zayn asks, watching Niall lock the door.

Niall turns to look at him and Zayn knows that he’s not going to like whatever it is. Niall doesn't have good news. “I find out everything that I could about Harry,” he says, slowly handing over the file.

Zayn swallows, taking it with shaking hands because he knows that nothing inside of this folder is going to be good. He knows, from the look on Niall’s face to the feeling in his gut that he’s not going to like this. Opening this folder means that he’s going to learn things about his husband that he’ll wish he never saw. It’s going to change things. There’s no way around this.

Zayn swallows against the emotion he’s feeling, because he’s an agent and he’s been trained by the best, he knows how to push emotions and feelings to the side so that he can get a job done. And right now, opening this folder is a job. He doesn’t have to like it, but he has to do it.

There are pages upon pages of information on Harry. Different assignments that he’s been on, including today and the one he took from Zayn, and all other known information on him. It doesn’t specify that he’s married or list anything about Zayn, but there’s a pattern that Zayn recognizes between the cases and the wording on all of this, one that has been burned into the back of Zayn’s eyelids.

“Zayn,” Niall says, and it’s that ton people use when they’re delivering bad news, the one that families hear when they find out loved ones have died overseas. And Niall might as well be telling him that Harry is dead when he says, “He works for Patrick.”

Zayn flinches involuntarily. It’s one thing to see the pattern of it in Harry’s file, but it’s quite another thing to hear it, to feel the way his body reacts to that information.

Patrick is a part of Zayn’s past that he wishes he could forget, that’s always looming over his head before he accepts his assignments when he’s snapping his gun into his belt. Patrick is how Zayn got into the business nearly a decade ago, which means Harry is a relatively new agent for Patrick, because he wasn’t there when Zayn was, or Louis was. Or at least Louis has never mentioned knowing Harry through Patrick, and he’d tell Louis. Zayn is sure of that.

Zayn closes his eyes and breathes out slowly, trying to pull himself out of his head. Talking about Patrick always does this to him. It always makes him remember a point in his life where he was forced to work himself sick, forced to work until it felt like he could break like he was breaking, because Patrick always took and took until Zayn had nothing left to give him but tried anyway. To Patrick, Zayn was property, his to work into the ground, and not a human being to be treated as such. Zayn was a way for him to make money, and if Harry is working for Patrick, then he can’t imagine that Harry is being treated any better.

But then again, maybe he is. He’s not Zayn. None of them were ever Zayn.

It’s how Zayn met Niall, how they became friends, back when Niall was an annoying little shit and used to hack into Zayn’s hacked ear piece and laugh as he fucked up another one of Zayn’s jobs. He worked for a competing agency, the one that Zayn works at now, and when he realized that the missions Zayn were being given were becoming increasingly taxing and draining.

It’s because of Niall’s help that Zayn was able to get out of that agency and into this one, when Zayn assured him that he wanted to continue doing what he’s always done, after Niall found out where Zayn lived and came to check that he was still alive and Patrick hadn’t killed him. Zayn had laughed on at the relieved look on Niall’s face and assured him it was only a matter of time before Patrick had him killed.

And maybe this is it, this is the time that Zayn warned Niall about. But it’s been years, and if Harry is how Patrick plans on killing Zayn, then he’s wasted six years. Six years is an awfully long time to drag something like this out. But Zayn knows Patrick and he knows that he won’t give up, he doesn't, and he’s not going to forget how Zayn left and forgive that. He’s not going to forget all the damage that Zayn caused because like fucking hell was he going without a bang.

Louis followed a year later, and then Zayn met Harry, so Harry has to know. Maybe he’s simply Louis’ replacement, or maybe he’s something more, something else entirely, but Zayn doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what any of this means. He doesn’t know what to do.

“Zayn,” Niall shouts, wrapping his fingers around Zayn’s wrists.

Zayn finally looks up at him and blinks. He realizes now that his ears are ringing.

“You can’t let anyone find out about this,” Zayn says, shutting the folder in his hands because he can’t read anymore. “You can’t do that, please. Don’t tell anyone.”

Niall nods. “Of course. I told you I wouldn’t,” he promises and Zayn nods, tucking the folder under his arm. He doesn’t know what he should do with it. If he should burn it so no one else can access this information. Hopefully, Niall didn’t save a copy of it somewhere. Hopefully he was careful, however, he found it. “Zayn, you okay?”

Zayn wets his lips and nods, bobbing his head. He needs to figure this out, what he’s going to do.

“Everything’s fine, just please—Please don’t tell anyone about this.”

“I won’t,” Niall assures him and he looks like he wants to do more like he wants to say more, but both of them know that there’s nothing left to say.

//

Dinner is ready at seven. Harry has it sitting on the table, and he’s lighting candles when Zayn walks through the door cautiously like he’s worried what he might find waiting for him.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary. Harry’s still in his work clothes, the table is set just as it always is, but the hairs on the back of Zayn’s neck still stand on end.

“You’re right on time,” Harry says, smiling over his shoulder and Zayn’s eyes zero in on his hands, watching as the flame disappears from the lighter before Harry sets it down between the candles, just like he always does. Everything is by the book, and maybe that’s what makes Zayn the most nervous. “How was your day?”

“Interesting,” Zayn answers. He doesn’t take his wallet out of his pocket. He hesitates on if he should set his keys down but he doesn’t want to alarm Harry, so he sets them on the counter, right where he can grab them if he needs to run. “How was yours?”

“Pretty standard. Nothing exciting,” Harry tells him, taking his seat. “What made yours so interesting?”

Zayn hums and takes his own seat, eyes watching as Harry picks up his knife to cut into his dinner. “I’m sure it’s nothing you’d be interested in hearing about.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means what it sounds like. Just a normal, interesting day at the office, where I did nothing different from what I normally do. What about you, Harry? Did you go or do anything interesting?”

Harry looks at him and frowns. “No, I didn’t. Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Zayn answers, lifting his fork. He stops when he realizes that he’s about to take a bite of the food that Harry has prepared for him.

Zayn stares down at his meal, pushing food around on the plate and trying to figure out if there’s anything different about the meal. Zayn’s eaten thousands of meals made by Harry, but now Zayn knows that he has a reason not to trust his food.

“Something wrong?”

Zayn lifts his gaze slowly to see Harry staring at him, looking at Zayn like he can’t figure out what’s going on. But Zayn knows now that Harry is just a good actor and nothing of his concerned looks mean anything.

“Did you do something different?”

“Oh, I switched out the carrots and thought I’d try broccoli. We haven’t had any in a while. And you like it.”

“I do,” Zayn agrees, flipping over a floret like it’ll have some clue underneath as to if Zayn should be worried about this meal or not. But Harry’s eating it, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that Zayn’s isn’t poisoned, but it does offer him some comfort.

Harry sighs, dropping his fork. Zayn jumps at the noise it makes when it hits the plate and glances up to see Harry taking a sip of his wine.

Zayn knows that he’s risking a lot by trying to start a fight tonight because that’s what he’s doing. Part of him wants to see how far he can push Harry. He wants to see just how far he can test Harry’s limits before Harry reveals that he’s working for Patrick, and then Zayn gets to see what Harry’s going to do after that if he’s going to kill Zayn or not, if that’s the endgame of this whole thing.

“I’m going to have to go back out of town in two days. Just for a little while,” Harry says and Zayn freezes at that. “I’m going to head to the office tonight. The more I get done now, the less I’ll have to worry about when I get back, so I’m going to head out after dinner.”

Zayn clenches his jaw against saying something because he knows he’ll shout about how is he going to fucking protect Harry from himself and others if he’s gone out of town. He can’t do that and he can’t sit at home and twiddle his thumbs while he waits, because if Harry isn’t here because Patrick wants him to be, that doesn’t mean Patrick doesn’t know and isn’t buying his time before he kills Harry and then comes to Zayn himself, because Zayn doesn’t know what he would do if he were the reason that something happened to Harry.

Fuck, Zayn doesn’t want to think about what his life would be like if Harry weren’t in it, or if Patrick got to him one last time and took the _one_ person away from him that matters the most. Zayn’s never worried about his family, he keeps them at a safe distance, but Harry? Harry’s always been front and center, a target on his back the moment Zayn agreed to marry him, and Zayn put it there. And Zayn knows he’ll never be able to live with himself. Patrick _knows_ that, even if he’s clueless to their marriage, which Zayn doesn’t trust for a second, but he’s not going to let Harry walk into an assignment that he knows nothing about, because there’s not a chance in hell Patrick is telling him the truth.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Harry asks, cutting into Zayn’s thoughts.

“About what?”

“About whatever you’re thinking about. About me leaving.”

“No,” Zayn says, standing up so abruptly that his legs knock into the table, sending the wine in his glass sloshing over the sides. “Just go.”

Zayn grabs his plate and drops the contents of it in the trash. He’s not going to eat it, not when he’s torn between the thought of Harry poisoning him and Harry being clueless to it all. It’s like he’s split down the center and he can’t decide which way to go, but he knows that he’s never going to be okay with Harry going out of town again because he _knows_ where he’s going and what he’s doing now.

Harry looks like he wants to say something when he sets his plate down gently in the sink, leaning against it as Zayn scrubs at his own. He hesitates, setting his hand on Zayn’s arm. “I’ll be home as soon as I can, okay?”

Zayn nods and Harry sighs. He looks torn on something when Zayn glances at him out of the corner of his eyes, reaching for the soap.

“Love you,” Harry says, kissing Zayn’s temple and then he’s gone.

Zayn stands there and listens to the garage door open, Harry’s car door slam shut, the engine starts, and then the garage door once more. He breathes out slowly and then finishes the dishes, washing their plates and glasses, and then the dishes that Harry cooked with, because they’ve always agreed that whoever cooks doesn’t have to do the dishes, so all the chores are shared equally and neither of them feels like they’re doing more than the other. And if one of them is going to take the time to make a meal for the two of them, then the least the other can do is take care of the dishes.

Zayn’s leg bounces as he waits, sitting on the couch staring at the TV blankly, waiting to see if Harry will be home soon. Night falls and the last news program of the night finishes before Zayn admits defeat. If he can’t spend one night knowing that Harry’s doing his job, then he’s not going to make it on when Harry disappears on a business trip and is gone for days.

So, Zayn texts Niall and asks him to find out where Harry is going and says that he needs a flight there. Niall doesn't reply right away, so Zayn plugs his phone in and sets it on the nightstand. He knows that Niall will understand. Niall follows all of Louis’ assignments very carefully and never hesitates to change things around if he thinks that things will be too dangerous. It’s the reason for most of Niall and Louis’ fights, but at the end of the day, Louis knows that Niall isn’t going to stop trying to protect him.

Harry arrives back home when Zayn is crawling into bed, checking his phone to see a flight confirmation to Greece. _Thanks_ , Zayn replies, setting his phone back down and getting under the blankets. He shuts his light off and keeps his back to Harry’s side of the bed.

//

Zayn’s boss is understanding when Zayn asks for time off to take care of a few personal things. He doesn’t ask questions, just smiles and wishes Zayn the best. It’s because of reasons like this that Zayn loves working for this company. His boss treats him like a person. He understands when they need time off, even if it’s just to spend a week in Hawaii with their toes in the sand, he understands when they don’t want to take certain assignments, even if he never asks questions.

Niall continues to text Zayn updates when he’s on the plane, coordinates of where he can find Harry. Zayn’s phone chimes for nearly two minutes when he shuts it back on, feeling the vibrations in his hands as he tries his hardest to keep up with it all. Finally, Zayn sees that Niall’s got him a room at Harry’s hotel, which will allow Zayn to know what Harry’s up to.

God, he hates this. Zayn hates that he’s flown across the world to spy on his husband. It doesn’t matter why he’s doing it. He shouldn’t, and maybe he could go home and wait. Harry will call him before he goes to sleep because it’s been hours since he’s landed – according to Niall’s texts – and he still hasn’t called Zayn to let him know that he’s safe. Zayn can just trust that Harry is going to take care of himself and he can go back to work, maybe take on an assignment with Louis, but—

Harry works for Patrick and Zayn doesn’t want Harry to be a casualty in whatever this war is between Zayn and Patrick. He _can’t_ have that. Zayn’s chest feels like it’s going to cave in when he thinks about it, so Zayn doesn’t care if it’s right or wrong, he has to know that Harry is _alive_ , he can’t wait for that.

Greece is beautiful. Zayn’s always loved it here when he’s come on missions. He’s never been with Harry, the two of them stepping away from their lives to play tourists. They haven’t done that in ages, planned a place to go and gone, just to get away from everything but each other. They’d spend days in hotel beds and wandering around foreign cities, most of them places Zayn had seen before, but never in the way that he shared them with Harry.

Being in places like this, beautiful places that are so unlike home, Zayn always thinks of Harry and when they first met. For the first time in six years, Zayn questions why Harry was Brazil that time, if he was really there on holiday, or if he was on an assignment like Zayn was, spending time at the pool to watch his assignment.

This time around, Harry’s assignment is a balding man with a rounded stomach. Zayn doesn’t know anything about him, but Harry manages to get it taken care of easily and smoothly, with none of the sloppiness that Zayn witnessed at home. He does what he needs to do and then he’s gone, disappearing down a busy street.

Zayn receives a text a few hours later, a picture of Harry in his hotel bed. There’s another a second later letting him know that he’s safe and landed, tired after a long day, so he’s going to take a nap before he heads out. Zayn breathes, truly breathes for the first time in a long time, when he sees the picture. He knows that Harry’s telling the truth because the blankets are pulled up to his chin and he’s seen Harry sleepy enough times to know when’s tired.

Harry sleeps for a few hours, while Zayn sits outside and enjoys the view.

Later, at the hotel bar, Harry seems rested and happy. Zayn rolls his eyes when he sees him leaning against the bar with a drink in his hand as a woman in a slinky black dress hits on. Harry talks to her for a minute before he ultimately declines whatever she’s offering him and he sees the flicker of disappointment in her eyes.

Zayn shakes his head and leaves Harry to it. He’s not going anywhere for the night, and if he takes some girl up to his hotel room, then he takes some girl up to his hotel room and Zayn blows his cover. And Zayn might not know much about Harry anymore, so he doesn’t know what Harry’s going to do tonight to celebrate a finished assignment, but as the elevators close, he sees Harry leaving the bar alone, so Zayn knows he doesn’t have to worry about that. Though, he does wonder how Harry hasn’t noticed that Zayn is following him.

//

Their next therapy session is a few days after Harry returns. Things are quiet, for the most part, with neither of them leaving the house after dinner and, as far as Zayn is aware, neither of them has been on any assignments. Zayn spends most of his time thinking, trying to figure out where Harry’s loyalties lie and analyzing every second of their relationship to try and figure out where the lies start and end. How much of it was Harry and how much of it was Patrick seeping his way into another aspect of Zayn’s life so that he can kill him intimately and slowly.

Zayn is at a crossroads because he has no fucking clue about anything or what he can do. He tries to shut his emotions off, to close himself off to everything, because if he can spare himself, then he’s going to do it, but it’s been causing so many issues at home that Zayn doesn't know if it’s worth it. But he’s alive, so how could it not be?

“So, how has everything been since the last time we saw each other?” Dr. Astina asks and Zayn remains silent.

“It’s been…weird,” Harry answers, looking at Zayn quickly before he glances back at Dr. Astina. “Tense. Things have been tense.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know. I feel like there’s stuff that Zayn wants to say to me, but he’s not doing it, and, like, I don’t know what it could be, and it’s okay if he’s not ready to tell me, but. But it feels like it’s weighing pretty heavily on him,” Harry explains.

Zayn sighs, shifting in his seat. “That’s funny because I feel like I’m waiting for you say something to me.”

“The only thing I’ve been waiting to say is that I want to ask you why’ve been so on edge lately. I don’t know what’s going on,” Harry says, phrasing the last bit to Dr. Astina. “A while ago, not that long ago, he came home from work and said he had an interesting day, I asked what happened, and he just—He didn’t answer. He blew me off and things have been weird ever since.”

Dr. Astina nods and Zayn almost wants to tell her not to pry into this, because not even she can be trusted with their secrets, and that this is something she’s better off not knowing. Neither of them is going to tell her, least of all when they can’t even tell each other.

“Zayn, how do you think things have been since we last saw each other?” Dr. Astina asks.

“If that’s the way Harry sees things, then I guess that’s how they’ve been,” Zayn answers. “Yeah, things have been weird lately.”

“And that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Because things are weird, yeah. I guess. Because there’s something wrong with our marriage, well, I think it’s obvious at this point, and it sucks because neither of us wants to talk about why we’re here, how we got here, so we’re going to keep talking about shitty weeks and one of us not saying something small and insignificant, because neither of us wants to acknowledge why we’re actually here,” Zayn grits out, rubbing his palm along his forehead as he feels the traces of a headache coming along. “There’s something wrong with our marriage, and neither of us wants to deal with that.”

“Bad weeks and unspoken words can often times lead to bigger issues,” Dr. Astina explains. “But if you’re feeling like we should address the bigger issues, and you want to lay all your cards on the table, then we can discuss why you think you’re here, what you want to do about it, and what things have been bothering you. We’ll get it all out now and then take care of it.”

“And what is that going to do?”

“Zayn, we’re here for a reason,” Harry says.

Zayn swallows at that because he doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, not in his life, not his job, and not in his marriage. It might be easier, if they fought more, with raised voices and empty threats, something to show Zayn that they’re still here, they’re still in it, even if they’re not showing it how they should. He needs that outwardly display of something, anything at this point, to let him know that everything’s not going to go up in smoke and these past six years will have been for nothing.

“I don’t know why were here,” Zayn whispers, clearing his throat around the emotions threatening to spill out of him. “I’m not saying that to be difficult. I’m saying that, to be honest. It’s like we go through this just to go through this. We put up with each other because we’re supposed to because we’re there. I haven’t felt like Harry’s wanted me around in a while.”

And it’s true. Ignoring every secret between the two of them, Zayn used to feel Harry’s desire for him, not just sexually, at every moment. He used to know that he was wanted and cared for. Now? Now, he has no fucking clue what’s going on, and maybe it’s intensified by their lying and Zayn finding the truth, but maybe it’s not.

“I know that I could do more but I’m stuck. We’re stuck and we’re going to drown if we can’t figure this out,” Zayn says because that’s what he would have said if he didn’t know the truth, if he wasn’t in on their secrets.

“Harry, how does it make you feel when you hear that? Do you agree with Zayn’s statements?” Dr. Astina asks.

“Maybe, yeah,” Harry says. “I think—I think that…I don’t know how to say this and have it not sound completely awful, but I don’t know what’s going on with us anymore. I always thought that this was the only certain thing in my life, our relationship, our marriage, but lately—I don’t know,” Harry sighs, frowning as he plays with the hem of his shirt. He’s nervous, anxious as he sighs once more like he’s unable to do anything but as he struggles for the right words.

“There was a time,” Harry starts, “when I’d look at him and I’d just _know_. He didn’t have to be around and I’d know. I’d feel it. And I know people say that it’s like that in the beginning but you’ll get out of that phase and whatever, but, god, this was years. Every inch of me could feel it, but now? Now, sometimes when I tell him when I say that I love him, I’m not sure if I feel it anymore.”

Zayn doesn’t wait for those words to sink in before he’s pushing himself out of the chair and leaving. Dr. Astina says something but Zayn doesn’t stop or listen, he keeps going, racing out of the building and out to his car. He needs to leave. He needs to go.

There’s not a doubt in Zayn’s mind now why Harry married him. It’s been clear since he found out that Harry’s an agent and working for Patrick. This was always the path that they were going to find themselves on. Zayn’s nothing more than a cover story for Harry. He married him as part of his job, as some kind of cover story, or an assignment that he’s been waiting to take care of.

Zayn drives for hours until his tank is nearly empty, and then he steals one so Niall can’t track him or Patrick, if Harry really is still on his side. He drives and he doesn’t allow himself to stop and think about anything that Harry admitted to in their session with Dr. Astina because if he does…

Well, Zayn doesn’t want to know what that’ll feel like.

//

Zayn ends up in the mountains. It’s beautiful. The cabin he’s in is made of wood and stained. Zayn can almost smell it in the air. The furniture is soft and plush, beige with the outline bears done in red. There’s an animal head on the wall and Zayn wants to take it down and bury it in the snow, to give the animal the dignity and respect that was robbed from him. The back wall is nothing but windows, thick panes of glass that give him a breathtaking view of the mountains the cabin is sitting on.

It casts a warm glow into the room, giving the cabin plenty of sunlight. Zayn often finds himself wrapped in a flannel-patterned comforter from the bedroom sitting in a chair in front of the window, staring out at the mountains. The heat in the cabin kicks on and off as it pleases, but Zayn barely notices.

Before stealing the car, Zayn shut his cell phone off, so he doesn’t know who is trying to find him. It’s dead, he tried it ages ago, just to see if Harry was worried about him, just rub salt into his wounds, but nothing happened, and no amount of tearing this cabin apart has revealed a charger.

Zayn’s alone up here, and it’s the most at peace he’s felt in a long time. It’s been three weeks since he’s seen another person, since he’s been anywhere else since running out of therapy, and it’s given him enough time to get into his head.

If anyone were to see him, they’d think that he was letting himself go. And maybe he is. He hasn’t showered in a couple days, his hair is starting to get stringy and he probably smells, but there’s no one around. He hasn’t shaved either, leaving his beard long and unkempt, longer than he’s ever let it get before, and he hasn’t been able to do any laundry, though he did manage to find clothes in the cabin, and he thinks it doesn’t matter that he only changed in the first place was so that he could stay warm.

He doesn’t feel like himself anymore.

But Zayn doesn’t care. His husband works for someone who made his life a living hell, he doesn't love him anymore, maybe he never did, and it’s only a matter of time before he makes his dramatic entrance into the cabin to end things in every way that he can. In every way that Patrick probably wants him to.

Zayn thinks he might be at peace with that idea, so he sits in his chair and stares out at the snow topped mountains, and tries to let the peace of the world up here wash over him.

There’s a bird at the feeder attached to the deck. It’s the one thing Zayn has been able to get up for, to fill up the bird feeder outside when he saw birds coming and going with nothing like they’re used to be catered to. Zayn feels a bit like the pigeon lady in the park in _Home Alone_ , just him and the birds and the mountains, and a bag of food he found tucked away safely in a storage unit under the deck.

At night, Zayn feels the most alone. The world is silent around him, with the exception of a few animal noises, and it gives him too much time in his head, too much time to think up scenarios where Harry and Patrick find him, where they taunt him like a cat taunts its prey. It feels like he’s playing into that, by staying at this cabin and waiting, but Zayn’s not going to run from this anymore. He’s tired.

Zayn doesn’t turn around when he hears someone storming into the cabin. Part of him breathes out a sigh of relief, like what he’s been waiting for is finally going to happen, but it’s not Harry blocking his view of the mounting. Instead, it’s Niall, cheeks pink. There’s snow on the ground at his feet, Zayn can feel as it melts, the water wetting his toes under the blanket.

“You look like shit,” Niall tells him and Zayn blinks. “You could have called, by the way.”

“Sorry.”

“Louis knows about Harry. Sorry,” Niall says, sounding annoyed when Zayn finally looks at him. “I thought he killed you until we figured out that you ran away, which is good, because Louis wants to kill him and if you had been dead, it would be harder to convince him that he can’t.”

“You promised you wouldn’t tell.”

“And I didn’t…until you completely fell off the radar and I couldn’t even find you. Do you know how hard it is for me to not be able to find anyone? I found you in the fucking desert once in the middle of the night, but you bail out on a therapy session and leave me in the fucking dark, and it takes me three weeks to figure out where you are,” Niall spits out, glaring. “Do you have any fucking idea how worried I’ve been?”

“Sorry,” Zayn mumbles, shifting his gaze to the mountains behind Niall so he doesn’t have to see the look on his face.

“No, you don’t get to apologize to me like you don’t mean it in the place you came to die. Yeah,” Niall says, nodding when Zayn looks at him one more, “I know exactly what the fuck you’re doing here.”

“Why’d you come up here if you thought I was dead?”

Niall sighs and looks away, staring at the picture of a bear on the wall. He hesitates for a moment, lifting his hand up so he can chew on his nails. “There’s a hit out on Harry,” he says and Zayn’s stomach bottoms out before he swallows, because he refuses to feel anything about that.

“I’ll take care of it,” he says, because it’s been three weeks and Harry still hasn’t come to kill him, so maybe this is the show that he was waiting for. “How many people know?”

“Just us. I blocked it before it could go out to the rest of the agency. It never fully went live, as least not yet.”

Zayn nods and stands up, dropping the blanket at his feet. He’ll need to get dressed, get his shit together so he can go home. He needs to take care of this. “Make sure that it doesn’t go live. If it does, mark it as an assignment for me, so other people leave it alone.”

“Yeah, all right,” Niall agrees, watching Zayn carefully as he follows behind him. “Can you tell me what’s going on? Can you talk to me?”

Zayn doesn’t have time for that, so he ignores it. He grabs the very few items that he has and heads out. Niall’s going to follow and he’s going to ask more questions, but only one those things is going to be of any use to Zayn, so he’s not going to pay the other any attention.

//

Zayn spends two days following Harry, and true to form, Harry doesn't notice a thing.

Harry’s routine is fairly simple, so it makes tracking him easier. It didn’t take long to find him. Zayn’s always felt like every light in the world could shut off and he’d still find his way back to Harry, so finding him carrying paper bags out of the grocery store doesn’t surprise Zayn.

Harry eats dinner alone at seven every night, sitting alone at the table. He sets the table like he always does, he lights his candles and sips his wine. He’s getting on with his life like Zayn missing doesn’t mean anything, like it hasn’t affected him in any way.

Harry is fine.

He doesn’t take on any assignments while Zayn monitors him, but Zayn still sees him come and go from Patrick’s office, a building that Zayn is all too familiar with. It’s not even in their city, and Zayn is amazed that Harry has made this commute every day because it takes a lot of commitment to drive as far as they’re driving. Until he follows Harry to a building on the edge of town, where he spends hours, and Zayn realizes that Patrick is slowing spreading his operations he’s not welcome. Zayn makes a note to warn Niall about it, so he can spend some time figuring out what exactly goes on inside before they pass the information along.

For the most part, everything seems to go as it should. Harry wakes up in the morning and goes for his run, then he’ll come home until it’s time to leave for work, where he stays for hours, and then he’ll come home and cook food for himself before he hangs out at the house until he falls asleep. Zayn doesn’t notice anyone else following Harry, which means that no one else knows about the hit at this point.

Niall’s assured him that it still hasn’t gone live, but he also won’t tell Zayn how much it’s worth, which tells Zayn everything he needs to know. It’s a lot, the price for Harry’s head.

Zayn’s following Harry, thumb tapping against the steering wheel as he tries to figure out where Harry is headed. Wherever it is, he’s left work early to make it there, and Zayn doesn’t recognize where they’re going until Harry makes a right and Zayn sees their therapist’s office.

Harry is still going to therapy without Zayn there with him. He’s attending couple’s therapy without the other half of his couple around. And sure, they’ve done it before, but why would Harry want to attend therapy when Zayn ran out on the last session? What is there that he could have to say?

Zayn grips the steering wheel as he circles the block, trying to think. He’s going to need to show his face to Harry at some point, so why wouldn’t he do it now where there’s a third party there to monitor the situation and make sure that neither of them does something they shouldn’t, something they might be getting paid a large amount of money to complete.

“Fuck,” Zayn groans. He thought he’d have more time to mentally prepare for this, but he’s a trained assassin, and if he can’t pull himself the fuck together, then what was any of his training for? He knows when to shut his brain off and do his job, and right now, Harry is nothing more than assignment given to him by Niall, just like plenty of others before him and plenty of others after him.

Zayn takes a deep breath and gets out of the car.

//

“Sorry I’m late,” Zayn announces, stumbling into Dr. Astina’s office with a grin. He shuts the door behind him and doesn’t react to the look of surprise on her face, and he doesn’t look at Harry at all.

Instead, he takes a seat in his chair, gently nudging it further away from Harry so that Harry can’t reach out and touch him.

“Zayn, glad to see that you’re back,” Dr. Astina says.

“Glad to be here.”

“Now that you’re here, I’d like to discuss what happened the last time we were all together when Zayn left. You were both sharing how you felt about being here and why you felt as though this was necessary, and during Harry’s chance to talk, you felt as though you had to leave. And from what I’ve heard from Harry, you disappeared altogether.”

“I did,” Zayn agrees, nodding as he scratches his chin. He’s shaved recently, so he doesn’t look like he did before, and his skin is still smooth against his fingers. “Though I think even you should understand why I wouldn’t want to stick around after my husband, my partner of six years here, says that he doesn’t love me anymore. It’s a bit difficult to process. I needed time.”

“That certainly is understandable. What did you think when you heard it? To be here, working on your marriage, and to hear Harry say that?”

“I think it just goes to show that we don’t really need this after all. If that’s how he feels, maybe we should hire a lawyer and just be done with it.”

“Zayn, that’s not—“

Zayn finally turns to look at Harry, glaring until Harry’s mouth shuts slowly. “I think you’ve probably had your own sessions while I was away, so I think it’s my turn to talk.”

“If you think that’s how Harry feels, why did you come back? Why do you think he agreed to these sessions? If that’s how he really felt towards you, why do you think he’d be here right now?”

“I came back because a friend came and got me. It’s as simple as that. And I don’t know why he agreed to this, maybe so when it didn’t work, he could suggest a divorce or something like it’s the best option. I don’t know. I don’t pretend to know what goes on in my husband’s head anymore.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Harry interrupts because he’s never been good at holding his tongue, least of all in situations like this, where Zayn is backing him into a corner, baiting him for a fight. And that’s what Zayn wants. He doesn’t care about these sessions anymore. Harry works for Patrick and Zayn has a job to do, nothing more and nothing less, this is part of his job, and he’s not going to stick around long enough to see if this is part of Harry’s job too.

“I think it means that you’ll do whatever it takes to make it seem like I’m the one who is at fault here when you have just as many secrets as I do. You might not realize it, but, Harry, come on.”

“Come on to what? What are you talking about?”

Zayn laughs, shaking his head. Dr. Astina sits across from them, legs folded at the ankle and hands resting in her lap as she lets them talk.

“I think we all know what I did while I was away, it’s not hard to figure out, but what about you, Harry? Have any good sales while I was away? Anything exciting happen with Patrick?”

Harry’s face changes, it shifts. He sits up straight almost immediately, hand curling around his thigh and Zayn can’t help but smirk. He knows now that Zayn knows, he _knows_ everything, and there’s a sick satisfaction in knowing that Harry can’t say anything in front of present company.

“All right,” Harry sighs, nodding as he slides his hands along his pants, wiping his palms off on the material. “How’s Quincy?”

Zayn blinks, the smirk leaving his face almost as quickly as it came. Harry knows who his boss is. He fucking _knows_ and if he knows that little bit of information, then everything Zayn’s thought up until this point is right. He should have never of tracked Harry on any of those missions, especially not his sloppy job in the warehouse.

Zayn’s fingers drum against the arm of his chair as he watches the clock tick, waiting for the minutes to pass. Neither of them says anything and Dr. Astina gets tired of asking questions that neither of them has any intention of answering, so she too sits in silence, but she doesn’t a better job at not checking the time until she’s announcing that they’ll meet again soon and to call her and let her know when they’d like their next appointment to bed, but Zayn is already out of his chair and rushing towards the exit.

Harry’s fingers wrap around his arm and he shrugs him off, turning to glare at him.

“I’ll see you at home, sweetheart,” he says and Harry glares, gritting his teeth against a nod.

//

Zayn doesn’t go home. He has no intention of going home. Instead, he heads towards Niall and Louis’ places.

Louis quickly gets over his urge to kill Zayn for worrying them when Zayn announces that Harry knows everything, he’s on the same page as they are. The only thing they have that he doesn’t is hit that’s out for him.

“How the fuck did that happen?” Louis asks, tugging Zayn inside as he starts working the locks on their door. There are two deadbolts and a chain, and one of those ones that are usually only seen on hotel doors, and a little golden flap that blocks the door from opening at the very top.

It’s always been unnecessarily precautious, but Louis is unnecessarily suspicious.

“I don’t know. He mentioned him at therapy after I said that I knew about Patrick. He didn’t know that I knew before that, though. He froze for a second. I don’t know how long he’s known,” Zayn sighs, resting his head in his hands. “He’s never shown any signs that he’s known.”

“Maybe that’s why he never noticed you were following him because he knew you were there.”

Zayn shakes his head. “No, I don’t think he knew that.”

“How could he have found out?”

“I don’t know. Fuck,” Zayn groans, digging his palms into his eyes before he pulls his hands away from his face. “We need a plan. I don’t know what to do. I wasn’t prepared for this.”

“You realize that he’s working for that sad, twisted fuck that we used to work for, right?” Louis asks, pacing the living room like his husband doing all of this like it’s his husband that’s the enemy now. “He’s working for Patrick, and that means he has six years of information on you. Six years of those assholes probably laughing at you because you didn’t know.”

“We don’t know how long he’s known, Louis,” Niall says.

“We don't know how long he hasn’t known also. He’s a spy. He kills people.”

“So do we,” Zayn laughs, leaning back in the wooden chair in Niall and Louis’ dining room, smiling when he takes the water that Niall’s brought in from the kitchen. “And…yeah, he probably has known the whole time, but that doesn’t mean we can half-ass this. We all know how Patrick works, and I know Harry—“

“You thought you knew Harry.”

“—between that, we should be able to think of something,” Zayn finishes, choosing to ignore Louis. He knows that he doesn’t Harry, not like he thought he did, but he doesn’t need Louis rubbing it in his face.

“I can do some more digging, find out everything that I can from Patrick’s servers, anything else that I can,” Niall suggests. “If they know about you, there has to be some kind of trail, even if it’s hidden.”

“Okay, that’ll work, but what we should do about Harry? He’s out there and we don’t know what he’s doing, or what—“

“We could just fucking kill him,” Louis suggests, looking at Niall and Zayn like they’re complete morons for not getting there first.

“Louis—“

“No, don’t Louis me. Harry is a sad excuse for a husband, I’ve always thought that,” he says, holding a hand to his chest and the other in the air to try and show that he’s telling the truth. “There was always something off about him. He tries so hard to be fucking perfect and everyone loves him, and it’s never made a lick of sense to me why people would flock to him, least of all you, because he’s always been overcompensating for something, and now we know what it is.”

“All right, Louis, he’s still my husband,” Zayn sighs because he understands that Louis is angry, he feels it too, that anger boiling beneath his skin, but none of this is helping him.

“No, fuck that,” Louis laughs, shaking his head. “What do you think Harry is doing right now? He’s doing this exact same thing. He wants to _kill_ you. And not in the ‘oh, you forgot to pull out dinner like he asked’ kind of kill you, but the kind that leaves you cold on the fucking floor. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I understand that. Why do you think we’re trying to figure out a plan? Do you think this is some kind of joke to me? Some fucking game that I’m enjoying? And what are we doing, anyway? We’re the ones that have a hit that we have to carry out, or it’s on our fucking asses.”

“All right,” Niall calls out, waving his arms around. “The last thing we need is you two turning against each other. Louis, you’re mad about Harry. We get it and we both appreciate that but shut the hell up. Zayn, fuck, I don’t know what to say to you. I know you won’t talk about it and you’re going to say your fine, but…fuck.”

Zayn swallows and smiles. He shrugs, because what else is he supposed to do?

“I think we need to get Harry here. Maybe not here, but we need to put his boney ass on a chair, make it so he can’t move, let alone get away, and then we need to figure out what all he knows and what he plans on doing with that information. He’s a spy, so this is his job, to have all the information, and there’s not a chance in hell that he’s in the dark.”

“Yeah, but how are we supposed to get him in your chair, Louis?” Niall asks, laughing. “You wanna invite him over for tea?”

Louis breathes out, groaning for a second. “All right, you know what, we’re sleeping on it,” Louis announces, leaving the room in a huff.

“Sorry,” Niall groans, palming his face and shrugging when he makes eye contact with Zayn.

Zayn shrugs. “It’s all right.” He stands and pats Niall on the back, stretching as he watches Louis come stumbling back into the room, dragging a mound of blankets towards the living room.

Zayn follows, dragging his feet and finally feeling how tired he is. Louis lays a sheet over the couch, tucking it into the cushions so it can’t fall off, though it will, because sheets do that, and then he drops a pillow down.

“Sorry we can’t give you something better,” he sighs, scratching his scalp. He passes Zayn the quilt that he’s brought down, the final blanket that Zayn drops down on top of the pillow. “I’m sorry if I made things worse in there, but,” Louis releases a deep breath and shrugs. “If you husband shows up here, I’m not going to hesitate to shoot him. Maybe I’ll get him in the leg or something, but I won’t hesitate, and I’ll make it count.”

Zayn laughs, really laughs for the first time in ages. He pulls Louis into a hug, clapping him on the back.

//

They don’t come up with a plan, at least not one that could be written down on paper and passed off to someone else for them to pick up in case none of them are capable of finishing it. But they stick to what they know.

Niall hacks into Patrick’s systems, just like he said he’d do, and everyone is amazed at how easy it is like Patrick is personally sending them each and every one of his passwords. There are blockades, places that Niall can’t access easily and he needs more time to take care of, but he promises to work on it.

“But I can’t do that if you’re both here, breathing down my necks,” Niall shouts, sliding over a stack of folders. “Pick one and leave me alone.”

Zayn doesn’t really feel like taking on an assignment right now, but he knows that he needs to get away for a while and falling into familiar patterns is going to help. Louis picks an easy one, some middle aged white guy that deserves to be in a prison cell for crimes that Zayn refuses to think about.

“We won’t know anything until we hear back from Niall, and he won’t know anything if don’t leave him alone, so I think he was right to send us out here,” Louis says, sliding the clip into his gun before piecing his gun back together with a series of little clicks. “And trust me, the last place I want to be is out in the open like this when Harry is off somewhere figuring out what to do with our bodies.”

“He’s had more than enough opportunities to kill me. He’s not going to do it now,” Zayn sighs, following behind Louis as he adjusts his earpiece, listening to Niall’s voice finally filter in. He’s rambling off things that he’s finding as he hacks, right before he tells them that the building they’re headed towards is vacant except for their target.

“You’re right, Harry’s not that creative.”

Zayn snorts. “No, maybe he’s not, sneaking up on us in the middle of the day to kill us. Who would ever think to do something like that?”

“All right, make jokes all you want, I’m just saying.”

“I know what you’re saying, and I appreciate it, but can we not talk about Harry right now and just do our jobs?”

Louis sighs and holds his hands up, letting Zayn follow him. They’re in a part of town that’s not all that active, not during the day anyway, so they don’t have to worry as they walk through the streets, cutting through alleys and listening to Niall in their ears. He can find anyway, no matter who it is. Zayn’s never understood it because it’s scarily good how well Niall does his job. Somewhere on the other side of town, Niall is sitting at a computer, tracking their target and hacking Patrick’s system. At the same time.

“He’s in the building to your left,” Niall tells them and Zayn and Louis proceed forward, into the building Niall mentioned because Louis loves doing his job up close and personal, and choosing an assignment where they have to approach a man in the back of a butcher shop, is so Louis that Zayn can’t help but roll his eyes.

“Not seeing him, Niall,” Louis mutters.

Niall sighs and mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot like, ‘I have to fucking do everything,’ before he says, “His cell is bouncing off the tower nearby, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t question my ability to—Wait.”

“Wait? For what?”

“Something’s wrong,” Niall says, voice frantic as Louis and Zayn share a look. “Someone’s hacking me, this connection. There’s someone else in there.”

Louis’ raises his eyebrows at Zayn, finally pulling his gun out. Zayn shrugs back because he doesn’t know what they’re supposed to do besides wait. Niall will tell them if it’s safe to continue, and if he doesn’t and whoever this hacker is succeeds, then they’ll take that as Niall’s way of saying it’s not safe.

“It’s Harry,” Niall curses and Zayn hears a bang on his side of the connection like his hand has slapped the table. “He’s fucking there right now.”

Louis gives Zayn a look as if to say, ‘your husband, you decide.’ Zayn nods, lifting his chin up to motion Louis on. He mouths that he’ll take care of Harry, and Louis understands, continuing on.

Zayn closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, pulling his gun out. “Harry, sweetie, I thought I asked you not to bother me at work.”

“And I thought you were supposed to come home tonight,” Harry says, and his voice in Zayn’s ear, which means that he was able to hack Niall. It’s only a matter of time before they lose their connection because Zayn knows Niall and he knows that he’s fucking pissed right now about this.

“Hmm, yeah, about that,” Zayn mutters, eyes scanning the room. There are not many places that Harry could be hiding. The ceiling is tall, with the piping exposed in the main area like some kind of hipster apartment, but the kitchen is filled with so many parts of dead animals that Harry could easily maneuver around without Zayn noticing. There are too many hidden corners and Zayn’s never seen Harry try to hide himself in all the time he’s followed him, so he doesn’t know what he’s doing or where he’s at. “I think I want a divorce,” Zayn shouts.

A gun goes off, a bullet hitting the wall right above Zayn’s head. He smirks, eyes traveling in the direction of where the shot came from, giving him an idea of where he can find Harry.

“Darling, you shouldn’t be so surprised,” taunts Zayn, firing his weapon.

“Maybe I can give you that if you’ll agree to get the hell out of town.”

Zayn snorts, taking a careful and quiet step forward. “Do you really think I’m going to roll over to you and give you want you want this easily? You haven’t even said please.”

“After five years of marriage, I’d think you’d be used to that.”

“Six years,” Zayn shouts, firing two shots where he last saw movement because they’ve been married for six fucking years and Harry can never get it right.

“That fucking pest,” Niall groans in his ear, leaving Zayn clueless as to what Harry was going to say next. “Louis is on his way back to your car. You need to get the fuck out of there and head towards him.”

Zayn thinks about arguing, thinks about saying that he’s not going to leave until he gets his way, but he knows Niall will send a team of people in after Zayn just to grab him by his ears and take him back to the office.

Zayn fires his gun once more before he runs out of the building, tucking his gun back in its hiding place and rushing towards the car. Louis comes skidding to stop in front of him, leaning across the seats to open the door so Zayn can slide in easily.

“I know you told me not to say anything about Harry,” Louis says, pressing his foot down on the gas so hard that the tires squeal against the concrete, leaving black lines in their wake, “but your husband is a pain in the fucking ass.”

Zayn laughs, clutching the chicken handle as Louis dangerously weaves into traffic.

//

Niall helps Zayn track Harry’s next assignment. He doesn’t go to that one, instead, he goes to the third one, because he knows by now that Harry’s skin is crawling and he’s squirming, waiting for Zayn to do _something_.

It’s two towns over, and Zayn goes without Niall in his ear. He needs to do this alone and he doesn’t want any other voice in his head beside his own.

Zayn’s there before Harry is, which gives him plenty of time to take out the guy that Harry was going to and to rig the place. He attaches a bomb to the wall, just below a railing where Harry won’t be able to see it because he always misses the details. The guy in their agency who made the thing spent twenty minutes explaining why bombs are bad and why Zayn seriously needs to consider his options before he sets the thing off. Funny lecture for a smoke bomb with gas inside of it, but whatever, he appreciates the guy’s concern.

They’re in the country, with houses miles apart where thick green pastures keep goats and cows fed. There’s nothing in the immediate area that’s going to be damaged by the bomb beside where he places it, which is enough consideration for him. He’s only set a thing off like this once, and he doesn’t know what happened, but Niall chewed him out for the clean up so it must not have been pretty.

Harry shows up nearly an hour after Zayn does, creeping in like he’s going to find something besides a dead body. Zayn burrows himself in a corner near a window so he can rush off after he activates the smoke.

Harry is furious when he sees that the guy is down, already taken care of by someone else. Zayn wants to laugh, watching as Harry shouts curses and kicks at the ground.

“Looks like someone got here first.”

Harry freezes, shifting around slowly as he reaches for his gun. “Baby, what are you doing here?”

“Trying to help you make a sale. That’s what you call it, isn’t it? What do you think? How did I do?”

“I think you’re a pain in the ass and you shouldn’t be here.”

Zayn hums, slowly unlatching the window next to him. He doesn’t want to stay here long, just long enough for Harry to get a little closer. “I was only trying to help. Doesn’t really matter anyway, though, since a good chunk of the money is going into our joint checking account, isn’t it?”

“No, no, I think I’d like to hang on to this one myself if that’s okay.”

Zayn sighs, sliding one leg out of the window. “Suit yourself,” he says, slipping out of the window and rushing towards his car. He hits the button on the remote and then picks up the pace, knowing that he’s only got a few seconds before Harry realizes he’s not there anymore and the smoke starts to overtake the room. His car is parked behind a barn on the edge of the property, so he’s got a bit of distance to travel.

There’s no big boom when the smoke starts, nothing to alert Zayn that anything is happening inside of the house. There are thick clouds of yellow-y green smoke billowing out of the window and Zayn knows that it’s done. Whatever the gas does – seriously, he should have listened to the guy's lecture – is taking effect and there’s nothing he can do, even if he wants to.

Zayn doesn’t think about the way his fingers shake as he drives. He doesn’t think about the way his breathing is stuttering, or how his chest feels like it was in the bomb he set off. He swallows it down, ignoring it all because he’s done his job. And that’s all he’s supposed to do. He was given an assignment and he’s taken care of it.

Mission accomplished. Now, Zayn can go back to Louis and Niall’s place—Home. He could go home since he doesn’t need to avoid Harry anymore.

Zayn’s phone rings and he hits the button on his steering wheel so the call comes in through the stereo speakers.

“Hello?”

There’s silence for a second, just the sound of someone breathing before he hears, “How many more times are you going to try and kill me?”

Zayn’s shoulders drop as he breathes out heavily, clutching the steering wheel. “As many times as it takes.”

“So, I want you dead, and you want me dead.”

“It would seem that’s the case,” Zayn replies, eyes in his rear view, trying to see if Harry’s following him. “What are we going to do about that?”

“I could kill you now,” Harry says, and Zayn’s fingers tighten until his knuckles go white. “You wouldn’t be that hard to find. I bought the car you’re driving, it’d be easy to trace.”

“If you put a fucking tracker in my car, I’m going to—“

“Kill me?” Harry laughs. “No, there’s no tracker, but do you honestly think the lights on top of every stop light in this city aren’t recording our every move? It’d be easy to find you that way.”

“God, you’ve always watched too many conspiracy documentaries on Netflix,” Zayn mutters. “Are you still where I left?”

“No, I’ve relocated to pull glass out of my arm. I’m fine, by the way, thanks for asking.”

“Oh no,” Zayn groans. “Did something happen?”

“Yeah, I had to jump through a fucking window because you like to play with things you don’t understand. You realize that smokes turns into this thick, poisonous sludge that could eat away at my flesh, so the least you could do is ask me if I’m okay.”

“I think we’re past pleasantries like that, don’t you think? Especially after you tried to put a bullet in my head.”

“If I tried, you’d be dead,” Harry deadpans, and Zayn wants to make a comment about how he’s seen how sloppy Harry is in the field, so he doubts that to be true. “How do you think this is going to end, Zayn?”

“I don’t know, Harry, you tell me.”

Harry sighs and there’s a tiny clinking noise from his end. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I haven’t gotten that far. I’m too busy thinking about why our marriage failed.”

“Oh, you don’t think it was the lying and all the secrets? Both tend to ruin other people’s marriages, so why not ours?”

Harry hums and Zayn can imagine him jutting out his jaw as he shakes his head. “No, I think our problem is that you used our marriage as a cover, nothing more than that, and we were always destined to fail if that’s how you felt about it.”

“You think I married you as a cover?”

“Didn’t you?” Harry asks.

Zayn stares at the fuzz on the roof of his car for a second before he ends the call, ignoring Harry altogether. Of all the conclusions that Harry could have thought up in that oversized head of his, Zayn can’t believe it was this one. He’s never needed a cover, and he wouldn’t marry someone for it. That’s not how things work for him and everyone at his agency, but it is how it works at Patrick’s and if Harry is thinking of these ideas, then he can only imagine where he got that from.

Zayn’s phone rings once more and Zayn sighs, rubbing his eyes with one hand and using the other to accept the call.

“The first time you saw me, what were you thinking?”

Zayn shakes his head. He’s not going to do this. He’s not going to play these fucking mind games with Harry. He’s not going to allow him to get into his head.

“What were you thinking?”

Harry breathes out slowly like he doesn’t have words for what he was thinking. “I was thinking that I couldn’t believe you were real. You looked like that feeling you get when you come home after being away for a while. I don’t know if there’s a word for that, but that’s what it was like for me.”

Zayn’s chest feels like it doesn’t know if it should stay in his body or if it should burst, leaving pieces of himself plastered against the interior of Zayn’s car. It doesn’t feel like he’s ever experienced breathing before like someone’s been holding his head underwater for seconds too long and he’s just felt air once more.

“What are you telling me this?” Zayn asks, short of pleading.

“I don’t know,” Harry admits. “Now, you go.”

Zayn grits his teeth. He wishes that he wasn't driving so he could bang his head against the dashboard for a minute just to get his mind back. He knows what he was thinking. He thought that Harry looked like the sun like all life is centered around him and Zayn would drift away if he wasn’t in his orbit. Harry’s had Zayn from the moment their eyes locked, always. There was never any changing that, until now, but Zayn’s not going to say that.

“I thought you were beautiful, and that you’d make a pretty cover while I waited to take out my mark.”

Harry’s silent for a beat too long and Zayn’s chest shakes as he waits. “So that’s it? I’m just a job to you?”

“Just a job.”

“That’s what I needed to hear.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be waiting for you at home, then,” Harry says, “if you want to finish what you started.”

“I’ll race you there,” he replies, already pressing down on the gas pedal. He has an early start, so he’ll have to make it there before Harry.

//

Zayn barely makes it home before Harry does, just seconds long enough for him to pull into the driveway and block Harry from getting in. He stumbles out of his car, cursing when he trips over Harry’s ugly garden gnome and rushes for the door. He unlocks it quickly and then tosses his keys, locking the door behind him.

Harry is going to kill him. He knows it, and he should have known it the moment he found out that he was working with Patrick.

Zayn grabs one of the guns he keeps tucked away in their house and waits, listening to the sounds of Harry trying to slink through their house like he knows how to have anything but lead feet that stomp in silence. He leans forward and fires a shot, the gun going off with a bang and Harry curses, stumbling and knocking over a vase that one of their neighbors gave them for Christmas with an uncomfortable smile and a nervous glance in Zayn’s direction, like they didn’t want to offend him by offering a gift for the holiday that they all celebrate, Zayn as a more a casual celebrator by default of his husband and one side of his family doing it.

Zayn loses track of Harry for a second until a bullet nearly hits him in the leg. Zayn leans around the wall and fires three times, laughing when he sees Harry roll out of the way.

There are bullets flying everywhere, into their couch and into the walls, breaking frames on the walls, and Zayn’s torn, because Harry is trying to _kill_ him, but their beautiful home is being destroyed in the process.

Zayn grits his teeth, closing his eyes for just a second. He has to stop thinking. He needs his brain to fucking shit off so that he can do this. He sends two more shots at Harry before his clip is empty and he’s tossing the gun, rushing into the next room for the one hidden there.

“In our dining room?” Harry shouts from somewhere near the kitchen like he can’t believe Zayn would hide a gun behind the good plates that they never use.

Zayn fires a shot in hopes that’ll shut him up. But Harry’s an idiot. Instead of talking or shouting, he starts moving around the house. Zayn plasters himself to the wall and spares a glance around the corner to see Harry’s foot sticking out from behind a wall. He fires a shot at the ground, just missing Harry’s toes.

There’s silence for a few seconds, where Zayn strains to hear any movement from Harry. He knows better than to assume he’s dead, because no one dies instantly from a shot to their big toe, especially not one that missed and splintered their hardwood floors that cost a fortune.

“You still alive, sweetheart?”

From somewhere across the house, Harry snorts, following by the sound of a clicking gun. “You have terrible fucking aim.”

Zayn fires again, sending the bullet straight over Harry’s shoulder so he has to jump out of the way. It wouldn’t have him, they both know it, but Zayn still offers him a smirk before he disappears, sliding when Harry sends two shots after him. He leans against the wall for a second, breathing in and out slowly, trying to catch his breath.

Harry has gone silent again and Zayn waits, trying to find the sounds of his feet on the floor, but there’s nothing. The only sound Zayn can make out is his own breathing. He climbs to his feet, careful not to make any noise, and tries to peer back in through the dining room.

Looking around the corner appears to be exactly what Harry wanted, because he charges at Zayn, slamming him back into the wall. Zayn grunts, pushing back until Harry knocks into the china cabinet and sends their nice dishes crashing to the floor.

Zayn feels the anger as it courses through his body, causing him to grab a picture frame and send it hurling at Harry’s head. He’s so angry, so fucking angry at everything that is happening in their lives, at their crumbling marriage, at Harry’s in ability to love him, at Harry lying about his job, and at Harry for working with Patrick. It’s all there, this pent up rage that he hasn’t acknowledged or dealt with because he wanted to bury his head in the sand and ignore the fact that he doesn't know a thing about the man in front of him, the one who throws a punch that Zayn dodges. He doesn’t know a thing about him or their marriage and Zayn _hurts_.

They go crashing down into the table, breaking it in half. They used to have sex on this thing when they first bought it, and it never showed any signs of buckling, but them attempting to kill each other sends it crashing to the floor.

Zayn sends his knee into Harry’s stomach, making him groan as he jumps up. Harry grabs him by the ankle, sending him crashing to the floor, and then they’re rolling around, hitting each other and trying to get away once they’re both on their feet. But Zayn manages to pin Harry to the wall, his elbow resting against his throat.

Harry stares at him with big green eyes, panting heavily. There’s a cut above his eye that’s bleeding. It’s clear that Harry can’t do it. He’s never going to be able to get the advantage over Zayn and kill him like he’s supposed to.

“Who the _fuck_ are you?” Zayn grits out, elbow digging into Harry’s windpipe, not enough to cut off his air supply but enough that to let Harry know that it could if he doesn’t answer his question.

“You know who I am.”

“No,” Zayn grinds out, putting pressure on Harry’s throat until he coughs. “Tell me who the fuck you are.”

“I’m Harry. I’m Harry Styles-Malik.”

Zayn screams and it actually hurts. The sound is being pulled out of his lungs so forcefully that he collapses forward, his arm sliding away from Harry’s throat.

“Don’t,” says Zayn, breathless. He physically, mentally, and emotionally doesn’t have it in him to play that mind game. He just doesn’t. He doesn’t need the sprinkling of salt over his wounds; he hurts enough without it.

“You know exactly who I am.”

“No, I fucking don’t,” Zayn yells, almost hysterical.

“Then you’re going to have to do this because I can’t. I _can’t_ ,” Harry sounds almost sad, and Zayn feels as his body sags, like he’s accepting that Zayn is going to kill him and he’s going to go without a fight.

“Don’t. Come on,” Zayn cries, hands shaking because this only works if Harry wants to kill him, too. This only works when Harry’s fight back. He can’t—He can’t do it this way.

Zayn shakes his head, stumbling backward. He drops his gun down on the ground, letting it crash to the floor. He looks at Harry, studies the eyes that he’s looked at for the last six years, and it’s all of the adrenaline pumping through his veins, but he looks at Harry and he feels like this is the most that their marriage has had in ages that feels like _something_.

Zayn pushes forward, resting his hands on Harry’s cheeks and pulling him into a kiss. It’s open and wet, messy slides of Zayn’s tongue in Harry’s mouth, because if this is Harry, then he needs to feel it. This is what he knows.

Zayn knows every inch of Harry’s physical body. He knows every curve and plane, every dip, every mole, and every freckle. He knows every one of them, and he knows the Harry behind this kiss.

Harry kisses him like he needs it too, like, he needs to feel if they’re who they’ve said they are all this time. He kisses Zayn in a way that he hasn’t in a long time, the way that always takes Zayn’s breath away, that reminds him how lucky he is to have someone like this at a pool in Brazil.

Zayn’s hands roam over Harry’s body, feeling the muscles tick in Harry’s shoulders as he pulls Zayn closer, sliding his hand down to grip Zayn’s ass.

If Zayn’s dick could talk, it would be saying a prayer to every deity in the world to thank them for this moment, because it’s been _so_ long that Zayn has had Harry in this way, pressed against him and grinding their hips together as they kiss. God, it’s been so long that they couldn’t even remember when it happened last at therapy.

Harry digs his palm against Zayn’s dick as he licks over his pulse point. He nips Zayn’s ear lobe, and Zayn makes a high, needy noise in the back of his throat.

Zayn pushes him away. Harry blinks, hurt, but Zayn pulls his own shirt off and Harry’s eyes widen in realization as he shrugs his off as well, then moving quickly forward to box Zayn in against the wall.

It’s the adrenaline and the sheer fact that they haven’t been together, haven’t touched each other in so long, that it all feels so frantic and rushed. Harry’s dry humping his leg with his hand down Zayn’s pants, fingers wrapped around Zayn’s cock as Zayn breathes into his mouth, unable to stop. Every nerve in his body is on edge, just waiting for _more_. Zayn _needs_ more.

“Fuck, Harry, I—“

Harry shushes him, brushing his hair back. “I got you,” he says, kissing Zayn’s jaw.

Harry slides Zayn’s pants down to his knees, leaving them there before he does his own. He turns Zayn around, presses him more into the wall. Zayn takes a deep breath, groaning when he feels Harry’s fingers slide into them. They’re wet with spit, not enough to ease the burn, but it’s what Zayn wants. He wants to feel.

Because this? This _feels_ like the Harry that he knows. This feels like them, years ago before either of their secrets was spilled. Back when they used to fuck wherever they could, on the kitchen table, on the back deck in the middle of the day, in Harry’s car in a parking garage after a football game, and now, in their hallway next to the staircase after they’ve just shot at each other and threw elbows and kneecaps.

Harry works him open, long fingers stretching him and Zayn doesn’t even have to say when he’s ready, Harry just _knows_ like he always does, just by the change in Zayn’s breathing.

Zayn doesn’t say anything because he’s so on edge, so ready for this. He’s been waiting months to feel the smooth, slow slide of Harry as his dick sinks into him. Zayn knocks a picture off the wall, trying to grab something to hold onto until Harry twines their fingers together, pressing them against the drywall.

Harry kisses the side of his neck. He thrusts in deep, long and slow movement of his hips, mouthing at Zayn’s neck like he has all the time in the world.

And it’s everything that Zayn’s been missing, even without the fumbling and the laughter, Harry’s playful growls before he tackles Zayn on the bed, but it’s them. It’s them and Zayn’s body shakes with the sensations, with the feelings of Harry buried deep in him, at the drag and pull of his cock.

It’s been too long and Zayn’s so overwhelmed already that he starts to feel his stomach twist, deep in his gut just above his cock.

Harry breathes his cheek against Zayn’s and then sighs. “I love you,” he says, his nose dragging along Zayn’s cheek before he kisses him, just below his ear, and Zayn breathes, high and breathy as his orgasm hits him, his stomach curling and uncurling as his body shakes with it. Harry fucks into him harder, faster, and Zayn presses his forehead against the wall, breathing as he feels Harry come inside of him.

It takes a minute, for the two of them to fall back into themselves, but when Harry pulls out, he rests his head on Zayn’s shoulder for a second, kissing the skin.

Zayn’s legs feel weak and he needs a minute, so he slides down to the floor, his best resting against the wall as he stretches his feet out in front of him. Harry is there, crawling into Zayn’s lap, resting his legs on either side of Zayn’s body. Harry has always been impossibly long and ungraceful, like a Great Dane thinking that it can fold itself up enough to fit in your lap on the couch.

“There’s a hit out for you,” Harry says because he’s always been one for pillow talk.

Zayn nods, rubbing his nose. “One for you, too.”

“Why does my boss want you dead?”

Zayn laughs, letting his head fall back against the wall. “Why wouldn’t he? He made my life a living hell.”

“What are you talking about?” Harry asks, frowning.

“I used to work for Patrick before I started working with Quincy. It was…ages before I met you. It was fine at first, I thought I landed the fucking dream job,” he laughs, shaking his head.

Harry is silent as he listens to Zayn. Zayn tells him everything, except some of the worst details. He tells him about being overworked, about being sent on assignments that he didn’t want to be on because he didn’t agree with them, but being forced to do them anyway. He tells Harry about everything, everything he hasn’t tucked away into the little corners of his mind that he never wants to access again. Harry listens, face blank and giving away nothing as Zayn talks.

“If it weren’t for Niall, I’d be dead. I know that,” Zayn says, watching as Harry’s brows furrow. “There’s not a doubt in my mind. And I like working for Q. I get breaks. I get time off. I get to choose my own assignments. I’m no longer killing people just because Patrick wants the cut. These people now are…they’re fucking awful people. Murderers, rapists, abusers, drug traffickers recruiting kids, the whole fucking thing. And I work with people that I enjoy. All of that…all of this freedom and the right to choose and live my own fucking life, all that I have with Q, Patrick’s not about that. He’s about sending my husband to kill me.”

“Patrick’s tough, but,” Harry shakes his head, struggling, “This doesn’t sound like him.”

“Yeah,” Zayn sniffs, lifting his thighs to try and buck Harry out of his lap. “I figured that’s where your loyalties lied.”

“What? Hey, no,” Harry says, pushing down on Zayn’s shoulders and pushing himself back into Zayn’s lap, cupping Zayn’s face so he’s forced to look at him. “That’s not what’s going on.”

Zayn shrugs. “Okay.”

“I believe you, but I don’t know the same guy that you do. I don’t know the Patrick that you’re describing, and that doesn’t make what you’re saying untrue. Everything you’re saying, for that matter. And whatever you say we need to do, I’m going to do. _We’re_ going to do.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Zayn admits quietly. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“It’s still me.”

“No, it’s not you. _My_ Harry likes to bake the neighbors cookies.”

“And _my_ Zayn used to have pink hair.”

Zayn frowns. “What does that have to with anything?”

“What does baking have to do with anything?”

Zayn opens his mouth and then closes it. He can’t explain it. Harry’s being so calm and level-headed, so unlike himself, and Zayn doesn’t know how to explain that things like baking the neighbors cookies is why he wanted to marry him in the first place. Harry was so unlike the world that Zayn knew. Harry was these bright bursts of color that helped Zayn forget about the dark. And knowing that most of it was a life, just some cover, it hurts.

“I need to call Louis. Or, Niall.”

“You don’t want to do that.”

“If there’s a hit out on me, I need to do that.”

“There’s one for Louis, too,” Harry says, biting down on his bottom lip. “It was sent out yesterday morning.”

Zayn blinks, ready to say something, but the next thing he knows there’s a bullet landing into the wall next to his head. There’s a brief moment where his eyes lock with Harry’s before all hell breaks loose. Bullets are pumping into their house quickly, all over the place, and they have to rush to get their clothes back on, dodging bullets. They grab their guns and shoot a few times at someone standing in their window.

It’s a miracle that no one is shot as they get into Harry’s car, Harry in the driver's seat as Zayn fires in quick succession out of the window until he sees a body drop.

“I broke my thumb in a fist fight,” Harry says, cutting into the silence as Zayn stares out of the window.

“You said that happened at work.”

“Technically, it was work.”

Zayn purses his lips but nods. Technically. “On our trip to Costa Rica, was your mom really sick?”

“No,” Harry tells him. “Patrick needed me.”

Zayn shoves Harry’s shoulder. “It goes without saying, all of my out of town trips weren’t to meet new clients.”

Harry shrugs as if to say that he knows that, his gaze lifting towards the rear view mirror. “We’re being followed. By a Dodge fucking Caravan. Who are these people?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Zayn groans, climbing into the backseat as Harry speeds up a little. He slides, nearly slamming his head on the window as Harry whips into another lane.

The van fires first, shots hitting Harry’s back window. Zayn rolls his own window down and sticks his arm out, shooting back. It’s hard to stay where he is, with Harry’s erratic driving. It keeps knocking him off balance and has him clutching the car door to try and keep from falling on his ass in the backseat of a car.

“We’re going to lose them with my driving alone, might as well save your bullets.”

“Right, because switching lanes is going to make them wonder which car we are. Drive like you fucking know how, babe,” Zayn says, shaking his head and she shoots at the van again, hitting their mirror.

“I’m trying to get some distance between them. If I swerve lanes when they can’t make it over, it puts more cars between us.”

Zayn grunts, clutching the chicken strap and leaning out of the window to fire more shots. The van is further than it was, so he slides back into the seat, still clutching the fucking strap because Harry is driving like a pre teen that stole his parent’s car and took it for a joy ride.

“I almost got married once before,” he says, and Harry slams on the brake, reaching around to slap Zayn’s leg.

“What the fuck. What are their names and social security numbers?” Harry asks. “Better yet, just give me their fucking names. That’s all I’ll need.”

“You’re not going to kill them.”

“Them,” Harry shrieks, slamming on the gas so Zayn’s face hits the seat. “Them. Them? There’s more than one?” He reaches around, one hand on the wheel as the other tries to hit every part of Zayn that he can reach.

“Let me drive before you fucking kill us,” Zayn shouts when Harry nearly swerves into oncoming traffic.

“Why? You worried your ex won’t want you back if I turn you into road kill,” but he’s unsnapping his seat belt.

“Oh, shut up,” Zayn mutters, climbing back into the front.

It takes a lot to get him behind the wheel and Harry in the back seat, with the guns. He fires a few shots at the van, probably out of frustration at Zayn’s confession.

“I didn’t bring my real family to the wedding,” Harry admits, shouting in Zayn’s ear against the wind coming in through the broken window.

Zayn reaches around and hits him, just because he can and because Harry had the nerve to be angry about something Zayn lied about.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Harry shouts. “The less you knew about my life, the better I could keep you safe.”

“Right, I’m sure that was your only intention. You fucking liar.”

Harry snorts. “Pot, feel free to meet kettle.”

“Shut up,” Zayn mutters, taking a hard left into oncoming traffic, running a red light and nearly causing an accident. Whoever in the van can’t make it through, so he’s able to get them away.

“Baby, you know it’s really hypocritical of you to get angry at me about my lies when you’ve been lying, too. Nearly fucking married,” Harry says, shaking his head.

Zayn sighs and doesn’t reply.

//

There’s a cheap motel called the Walnut Inn that they pass after nearly two hours. There are only two cars parked in front and it looks like it could be the set of a horror film. Harry swears that he’s seen this place on the news, but Zayn ignores him. It’s as good a place as any to stay right now, even if just for a few hours until they can figure out a game plan.

Zayn pays with cash, and the woman at the counter looks bored as she counts it before handing them a key with a plastic number seven on it. Her hair is a bit greasy and she’s wearing a robe, so Zayn doesn’t know if he woke her up or if she just really doesn’t care about her job anymore, but he smiles at her anyway and thanks her for the room before he grabs Harry’s arm and tugs him towards their room.

“I did a shower,” Zayn sighs, setting his shit down on the little wooden dresser.

He tries not to look around, really he does, but he almost can’t help himself. The walls are yellow, and he doesn't think it’s from paint. The bedspreads are typical for cheap motels, big floral patterns in burgundy and green and black. There are suspicious stains on the carpet and the headboard is broken, just propped against the wall behind the mattress. All in all, it’s not the worst place he’s stayed at.

“All right, I’m showering, and when I get out, we’re going to talk about Louis. Don’t think I forgot that,” he says, grabbing one of the white, slightly damp towels off the rack.

The bathroom is small, with just enough space for him to do a 360 circle. The toilet has stains that let him know it’s old, complete with the wooden seat that is going to send Harry through the roof when he sees it because nothing upsets him more than wooden toilet seats. There’s grim going from the spout to the drain in the shower, but Zayn really doesn’t care. He just wants to wash the day away, hopefully, send some of the weird energy he’s feeling down the drain as well.

Zayn spends a good amount of time in the shower, washing his hair with their cheap shampoo that smells like lavender and cigarette smoke, scrubs his body with the soap bar, and then stands under the water until his fingers start to hurt.

When Zayn steps out of the shower, Niall is there, with Harry lying on his stomach on the floor, Niall’s knee pressed into his back and a gun to his head.

“Honey,” Harry sighs, “Can you get this fucking gremlin off me?”

Zayn laughs, dropping his dirty clothes on the bed. He doesn’t have a chance, so he uses the towel to dry off before dressing in what he was wearing before.

“Niall, let him up.”

Niall glares at Harry for a second, mumbling something he can’t hear that makes Harry nod, and then he’s up. He doesn’t offer Harry a hand, instead, he steps over him, moving towards Zayn.

“There’s hit out on you,” Niall says and Zayn nods. “You know?”

“Yeah, Harry told me.”

Niall turns and glares at Harry before turning back to Zayn. “If he knows, then it’s in both of our systems, and that doesn’t usually happen.”

“He says Louis—Harry says there’s a hit on Louis,” Zayn says, wishing that he could say something like this in a way that softens the blow. Niall doesn't look particularly beat up about it, though. “Is it true?”

“Yeah, it’s true,” Niall says.

“He’s working with some arms dealer,” Harry says, stepping forward. “Some black market guy that’s bad news.”

“There’s no fucking way that’s true. That doesn’t even sound like Louis. Why would he fuck around with an arms dealer when it’s our job to have guns? We’re legally – well, you know what I mean – capable of having them, and he only ever touches his on a job. Niall has to clean it and make sure it works.”

“I’m monitoring it,” Niall informs him. “But we need to figure out what to about you two. Times up for both of you, so more people are going to get that notice. And the time is almost up for Louis, as well, so you two better think long and fucking hard.”

“We need Louis,” Harry says. “Without him, we don’t know the half of it. Literally. We need him.”

“He’s right.”

Niall sighs, throwing his hands up in the air. “I said I’m monitoring it. And I was too busy finding Zayn that I haven’t had the time to find Louis.”

“No time like the present,” Zayn says and Niall glares.

//

They find Louis coming out of a grocery store, a gallon of milk in his hand. They grab him, pulling him towards the back alley and away from prying eyes and ears.

“What the fuck,” he shouts, looking at all of them frantically. “What’s the matter with you all? And what the fuck are you doing here?”

Harry glares and folds his arm over his chest.

“Don’t talk to him,” Niall says, stepping forward so Zayn and Harry mostly look like his bodyguards instead of his friends. “Why do people think you’re messing with Tommy?”

“Who the hell is Tommy?”

“Your little friend,” Harry says and Louis glares then flips him off.

“Tommy Sirino,” Niall says, touching Louis’ face to get him to look at him. “There’s a hit out for you because you’re working with him. You have to—Louis, you have to talk to me about this. I can’t help—I don’t _know_ what to do. People want all three of you dead and how the hell am I supposed to do my job if you’re not telling me these things.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be telling you,” Louis starts, gently reaching out for Niall, “besides the fact that I’m not working for anyone other than Q. Why the hell would anyone say that?”

“There’s a bounty on your head for it, half a million dollars,” Harry interjects and Zayn blinks. That’s a lot of money, not the most expensive hit he’s seen or taken, not by a long shot, but it’s a lot for someone like Louis.

Louis shakes his head, and he looks genuinely confused. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I’m not working with Tommy Sirino. I know what a death wish is, and that’s not the one I’m making, so wherever you three got your information, you should talk to them.”

“Louis, it’s in our system,” Niall says, on the verge of hysterical. “Our entire agency knows about this. Harry’s, too.”

“Harry, Zayn’s lying husband that wanted to kill him up until, as far as I’m aware, five minutes ago? That’s who we’re trusting now.”

Zayn puts his head in his hands when the two of them start to argue, throwing cheap shots at each other. Louis is angry on his behalf, and he knows he needs to let him run his course, like a wind-up toy. They’re not going to stop until they let it all out, so there’s no point in fighting it. Niall seems to understand too because he shakes his head when Zayn looks up but doesn’t say anything to stop either of them.

There’s movement at the end of the alleyway, and Zayn cranes his neck to try and see what it was. There’s someone walking towards them, moving quickly and confidently, and Zayn reaches for Harry’s gun, because he doesn’t have his own, and too many people he’s standing with are people that others want dead.

Harry and Louis stop when they notice what Zayn’s doing, both them turning to look at whatever he sees.

“Wait,” Harry says, grabbing Zayn’s arm to stop him from taking the gun. “That’s my friend. That’s Liam.”

“Who is Liam?”

“He’s my—He’s my Niall, I guess. He helps me when I’m on the field, keeps me from getting killed.”

Zayn’s brows rise at that. “He does a pretty shitty job of it. Do you know how many times I followed you? How many assignments I trailed you on, and how many people _I_ stopped from killing you? Where the fuck was he?”

“You followed?” Harry cries, outraged. “When?”

“Like it matters now,” Zayn says, glaring at the guy that joins them. He’s got mousy brown hair cut along his forehead like a toddler when they first discover scissors and decide to cut their own hair. His eyes are big and brown, like the eyebrows around them, and he doesn’t look like he’s anything more than a pencil pusher, yet Harry trusts him with his life. “You come to apologize for how badly you do your job?”

Liam frowns, looking at Zayn. “What?”

“Jesus, shut up, Zayn,” Harry says, elbowing him. “What are you doing here, Liam?”

“You said that you were going to find Zayn. And that was days ago. I know what happened out at the farm, so I’ve been tapping into cameras all across this city trying to find you because we need to talk.”

“Oh,” Harry says, turning to look smugly at Zayn. “How many conspiracy documentaries is he watching? I told you I could do it.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “You can’t do shit. Your lapdog does it.”

“We don't have time for this,” Liam urges, causing four pairs of eyes to turn towards him. “It’s Patrick. All of this, it is Patrick. He infiltrated their system and put the hit out about Harry. And then he made it seem like there was one for Zayn until Harry didn’t do it, so now there really is one, for the both of you.”

“What about Louis?” Niall asks, motioning towards his husband.

“It’s all part of his game. Put a hit out on Louis, so Harry kills him, and then Zayn kills Harry. Then, there’s nothing stopping him from going after Zayn,” Liam explains. “Fuck, it’s taken me ages to pull this shit out of the servers, but he’s been following you two for ages. He figured out you were married two years ago and he’s just been…waiting ever since.”

Zayn turns to look at Harry, unimpressed. Harry sighs, throwing his hands up in the air. “All right, just say it, I know you want to.”

“I’m not going to say anything,” Zayn says. “But I told you.”

“I know,” Harry sighs, palming his forehead, his expression pinched. “I know. I’m sorry, okay?”

“We need a plan,” Liam says.

“I’m working on it,” Niall mumbles and he’s got that far away look in his eyes that he gets when he’s trying to figure something out. Liam looks concerned like this isn’t something one person can figure out on their own, but he doesn’t know Niall.

“So, basically, what I’m getting out of all of this,” Louis starts, “is that it’s Harry’s fault all three of us are wanted dead? Basically, is that what you’re saying?”

“No,” Liam says, shaking his head.

“What do you know, you’re a nerd,” Louis mutters, glaring at him. “If he had pulled his head out of his ass for ten minutes, he’d have seen the kind of person that Patrick is, and he could have left his agency.”

“Depending on when and how he left, we could still be right back here,” Zayn reminds him.

“As of earlier this evening, he wanted to kill you, Zayn. Did you forget that little fun fact?”

“And he wanted to kill me,” Harry reminds Louis. “We’ve talked about it, and this is between us, okay? We’ll deal with this without your input.”

“Attempted homicide should stay between you two, you douchebag,” Louis says.

“Jesus, Niall,” Zayn says, motioning towards Louis.

Niall shrugs and Zayn groans, rubbing his eyebrow with one of his fingers. Zayn knows that Louis is acting more on Niall’s anger than his own because Niall knows better than anyone how Zayn was during all of that. He’s grateful that he has such great friends, two people willing to go to the end of the Earth for him, but right now? Right now, they have a common enemy and it’s not Harry.

“I think the only way we can make this work,” Liam says, talking over everything, “is if Zayn leaves, or both of you. If you separate from each other, then we might be able to avoid this. Patrick doesn’t want his favorite agent anywhere near you, Zayn, I’m sorry. But I think this might help.”

Zayn looks at Harry. He thinks about going, getting in Harry’s busted car and driving until he hits the coast, maybe get on a plane and go to a foreign country. There’s an endless list of places he could go, all of them without Harry. But he thinks about Harry in Brazil, the cocky little shit he was when he approached Zayn and asked for a drink. Or, Harry in LA, smirking when he saw Zayn once again after Brazil, something neither of them thought possible. Harry, when he asked Zayn to marry him, looking like he, wouldn’t have cared either way, but radiating so much nervous energy that Zayn could feel it in his bones. He thinks about Harry in the mornings, sneaking out of bed so he can go for a run around their neighborhood, always mindful of Zayn’s aversion to waking up early. Harry when he leans against Zayn’s back and watches him shave, arms wrapped around his waist tightly like he’s scared of letting him go.

Zayn thinks about countless fights over where to go for dinner, about if they should plant flowers or shrubs in front of the house under the windows. Fights over someone leaving their dirty socks on the bathroom floor, fights over whose turn it is to take out the trash when it’s raining outside. A fight over whether to get plastic or wicker seating for outside, and it’s everything that Zayn’s known for six years. This man standing next to him is all he’s known, and it’s all he wants to know, and the look Harry’s giving him tells him everything.

“That’s not happening,” he says, folding his arms over his chest.

Liam sighs, shoulders sagging. “Then, you better hope your friend has a solid plan.”

//

Harry and Zayn end up back at their shitty motel, lying on a bed that smells like mothballs and stale cigarette smoke. Louis is in his own motel on the other side of town. Niall didn’t want all of them in the same place. Niall promised that he was going to handle things at work, and promised all of them that there would be nothing to worry about.

Harry steps out of the shower, dripping wet, his hair clinging to his face and towel wrapped around his waist. There are beads of water rolling down the expanse of his chest and Zayn turns to look at him, watching as Harry pulls his towel off and starts drying his body, muttering about dirty clothes and freezing his ass off. Niall’s promised that he’ll bring them something to wear soon, so, for now, Harry will just have to suck it up.

“We should have sprung for a suite. Not here, obviously, but someplace else,” Harry says. “It’s such a cliché, to stay in a run down place like this and expect that no one would ever find us. Actual hotels have better security.”

“You have three guns under your pillow. You’ll be fine,” Zayn mutters, closing his eyes. He feels the bed dip when Harry lies down next to him, the back of his eyelids going from red to black as Harry shuts the light off.

“This bed is uncomfortable,” Harry whines and Zayn has to take a deep breath so he doesn’t smother him with the pillow and collect the reward money. “You know I have a bad back.”

“And you know that there’s nothing I can do about this. We’re stuck here, just for a few days until Niall can figure everything out, so can you just, I don’t know, work with me here?”

“All right, sorry,” Harry says, reaching out to rest his hand on Zayn’s stomach. “I shouldn’t complain, not when it’s my fault we’re here, to begin with.”

Zayn sighs. “It’s not your fault. Patrick would have found a way to get me here even without you.”

“Your friend seems to think it’s my fault.”

“Louis’ just angry for Niall. It’s a thing they do. Louis acts on Niall’s anger so he doesn’t have to, I don’t know. It’s only when he’s really mad. Niall hates Patrick, which is funny if you think about the fact that he’s the only one of us that’s never actually worked for him before. It’s just…friends being friends. I wouldn’t take anything too seriously. We have enough going on without this weighing on your shoulders.”

Next to him, Harry breathes out, but he keeps his hand rested on Zayn. His fingers tap idly against Zayn’s skin, sliding from Zayn’s navel to his ribs, tracing around his nipple before sliding back down. It’s not leading up to anything and it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just Harry’s way of distracting himself.

“I know there’s a lot that we haven’t been telling each other, and there’s a lot more than we can’t talk about around Dr. Astina, but I want you to know, as bad as it sounds, I’m glad I wasn’t the only one lying,” Harry admits, voice quiet, like he’s unsure if he wants Zayn to hear this. “Keeping this all a secret was hard for me. I wanted to keep you safe, but I’d see the way you’d look at me when I’d go out at night, or when I’d have to go out of town after just coming back.”

“I thought you were having an affair. I saw the way you wouldn’t look at me when before you left and when you came back. I told myself to trust you, but,” Zayn sighs, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I never did.”

“What?”

“I’ve never had an affair. I’ve let people flirt with me, right before I do my job, but I’ve—No, not that.”

Zayn nods, listening to his hair rub against the pillow. “Neither have I.”

“You followed me on assignments.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to know who you were working for,” Zayn says, and it’s only a half lie. “You were an enemy agent, working for a competing agency, and I needed to know what that agency was and if I should talk to Q.”

“See, why do you do that?” Harry asks, sitting up to rest on his elbow, trying to stare at Zayn in the dark. “You always do this. You just…switch your emotions off sometimes and completely shut down. It’s there some kind of knob hidden on your somewhere that I’m accidentally touching, or what is it about me that makes you do that?”

 _You make me weak_ , Zayn thinks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You do. Sometimes, you treat our marriage like your job. Like it’s some assignment you’ve been given and little moments like this aren’t worth your time. This is why we’re in therapy.”

“No,” Zayn says, swatting Harry’s hand off his stomach. “We’re in therapy because neither one of us knew how, to be honest, and it ate away at us until our guilt forced us both, yeah, both of us, to build a fucking wall between us.”

“So knock it down. If you don’t fucking want it there, then do something about it. Shutting down isn’t going to help us.”

“God,” Zayn groans, rubbing his face. He’s so fucking stressed right now. There’s a hit out on him, his husband, and his best friend, and he’s destroyed his fucking home, and now Harry wants to hash out the details about why they both crashed their marriage into the ground. “See, why do you always have to do this? Why do you have to poke and prod until you get your way? Why are you such a spoiled fucking brat?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around you because there’s no room for mistakes.”

“Room for mistakes? I let you keep the hideous chandelier you hung in the dining room. I think I’m plenty forgiving of mistakes.”

“Oh, you mean the one that was replaced two weeks later. Yeah, thanks for that”

“Okay, I’ll buy you the fucking chandelier again. It was ugly and atrocious, but we’re going to have to redo the house anyway, so why not. Why not buy that fucking thing again. We can even put your new rug that you bought without me know in there, too. It’ll be Zayn’s room. Zayn’s dining room.”

“This isn’t even a real marriage,” Zayn shouts. The entire foundation of it is built on lies. Harry’s not who Zayn thought he was, and Zayn’s not who Harry thought he was. It’s a fucking sham. And now they’re arguing about lighting fixtures and rugs, and they’re going to redecorate their home?

Harry is silent. He doesn’t say anything, just lies back on the bed and stares at the ceiling. Zayn sighs, dropping down next to him and feeling the bed bounce slightly. He doesn’t why he bothers with this anymore, with the deep-rooted emotions and attachment. They’re going to sleep angry and that charged, reconnected energy Zayn felt between them is going to disappear, and then there really will be nothing left between them.

Zayn shouting that wasn’t fair, but that’s what Harry makes him do. He makes him angrier than anyone else can, and none of this is about rugs or lights or curtains.

“How many?” Harry asks and Zayn knows what he means. He doesn’t have to finish the thought.

“How many for you?”

“Sixty, or so. When I leave, I’m not always doing, you know, the worst of it. Sometimes I’m just spying on people, getting information for Patrick.”

Zayn nods and breathes out. Harry’s been working for Patrick long enough that he’s amazed the numbers aren’t higher. Zayn feels a slight ounce of shame when he says, “Three hundred.” The air goes still around them, Harry’s hand pauses for a fraction of a second.

“How many were—“

“Two something,” Zayn says, listening to Harry’s sharp intake of breath because he gets it now, what Zayn meant by Patrick was going to work him into the ground. People don’t have numbers like Zayn does unless they’ve been doing this for a long time. Lately, yeah, he’s been on a few more assignments than he usually has, but the crime in their city is growing at a rapid rate, and Zayn has a hard time saying not to the people that really deserve it.

“Do you ever feel--?”

“No, I don’t.” He doesn’t think about it. He used to it, and it ate away at him. Now, he knows what he does might not be seen as right to most people, but now he gets to take out the people that deserve it, and he’s not going to feel sorry for getting another rapist or murderer off the street. They made their decisions and Zayn made his. That’s it.

//

The plan is this: Patrick’s at his house and they’re going to show up there and kill him. Cut the problem out right at the source. Niall’s found a way to delay the security cameras so they can move around without being seen by anyone. It’ll give them enough time to get into the house and take out whomever they need to without alerting Patrick. Niall’s positive that he’s going to be there and this will work. He’s been working tirelessly with Liam over the last three days to set the plan in motion. The bags under their eyes are proof enough.

“There’s a boat in Morocco waiting for me,” Zayn says, standing in front of Harry as he watches Harry snap his gear into place.

“Charter plane in Newfoundland. What? I liked it there. What’s your point?”

“Point is, if we separate now, we’ll have a chance. A small chance, but it’s a chance. The odds are better.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “All right, let’s be honest here, our marriage…she’s a joke. She could use a little work. We’re both liars. I’m a disaster and you’re a fucking mess, but we’re not separating. You said Patrick ruined your life, that he was slowly draining you until you wished you were dead, well, this is you staying and fighting. You’re not running from him anymore. And you’re not running from me. If you want to go after this is over, then,” Harry releases a deep breath, his cheeks puffing out with it, “I guess I’ll see you.”

Zayn looks at him and nods, his eyes sweeping over Harry’s features as Harry shoves his earpiece in. He kisses Zayn on the forehead and then pats him on the ass as he moves towards where Niall has a blueprint of Patrick’s house laid out on the floor.

It’s not the best of plans, but it’s the only plan they have. The five of them against whatever is waiting for them inside of Patrick’s house. Niall is holding his fingers up, counting down from five to one to signal when they start moving. They have to stay silent, using every means necessary to take out an people that won’t alert Patrick to their presence.

“Try not to get yourself killed,” Harry says, sliding in next to Zayn.

“This isn’t my first time.”

Harry snorts. “I think we’ve established that.”

Zayn stomps on his toe, knowing how much Harry hurts toe pain more than any other pain. He groans and Louis smirks, holding his fist out for Zayn to tap their knuckles together.

When Niall’s hand turns into a fist, they step forward.

Someone must have told Patrick that they were coming because there are people everywhere, and Zayn has his knife in his hand, slashing and trying to take them all down in whatever way he can that isn’t killing them. He’s not here for them, he’s for Patrick, and none of them are going to try and avenge Patrick. He has his little lap dogs, but no one loyal enough to avenge his demise.

The house is too big and there are too many fucking people. It means Patrick’s here. He wouldn’t pull out this much manpower if this were a setup. He’s in this house, and Zayn starts to feel a quiet desperation at the thought of being so close to him. Zayn tosses a knife, hoping to catch the guy that Harry is struggling with it, but it dives into Harry’s thigh and he groans, sending his knee up into the guy’s nose before he pulls the knife out.

“I’m sorry,” Zayn says and Harry shakes his head.

“We’re going to talk about this,” he says before he elbows some guy in the face.

A gun shot goes off and the entire room freezes, all eyes snapping towards where Liam is standing with a gun in his hand, aimed in their direction. Zayn turns back to see a guy on the floor, a rifle discarded on the floor next to him, and Zayn knows why Liam fired that shot. Fuck, he could have taken them all out, but now Liam has alerted the entire house of their presence and they need to get a move on.

Zayn pulls his gun out and fires, hitting one of Patrick’s guys in the knee when he raises his gun to Harry. The five of them work as a team, moving through the house quickly in a tight little ball, all of them mindful of each other, because none of them are staying behind in this house. Zayn knows he’s not going to let that happen and he knows they are too.

The air feels too quiet when they reach Patrick’s office. It’s just them and a door separating them from him. They don’t know what’s behind those doors and Zayn itches in anticipation.

“Sorry about the knife,” Zayn says, once they’re all gathered in a bathroom, reloading.

Harry waves him off. “I don’t want to talk about it.” There’s a bruise forming on his forehead where someone hit him with something, a little cut along his hairline, and the obvious wound in his thigh from Zayn, but aside from that, he seems untouched and breathes easier.

“Bet Newfoundland sounds nice right about now.”

Harry snorts. “It’s probably cold and wet right now.”

“Are you guys ready?” Niall asks.

“Been ready for a long time,” Louis says, answering for all of them as they nod.

Niall wraps his fingers around the doorknob and Harry cups his face, getting him to look at him.

“I didn’t mean what I said in therapy, about not feeling it when I tell you that I love you,” Harry says and Zayn frowns, wondering if he’s saying it because they’re walking into a situation they might not make it out of, no matter how hard they’re all going to fight. “God, I mean it. I always have, but it’s… fuck, it’s so hard when you feel like your marriage is crumbling and it’s probably entirely your fault for building the foundation on lies. But I mean. I need you to know that.”

“Harry,” Zayn breathes, shrugging, unsure what he’s supposed to say. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, than right here with your.” And then he pushes up on his toes to kiss Harry, just once, softly and quickly.

“Do you two have your shit together now?” Louis asks and Zayn nods, following behind them as they leave the bathroom, guns raised.

Niall kicks open the door to Patrick’s office and this is it.

////

Dr. Astina looks pleased when she sees them, entering their session holding hands. They still sit in opposite chairs, but Zayn turns his body towards Harry, reaching out for his hand once more.

“I see that you’ve made progress since our last session.”

“We did,” Zayn agrees. “Things have been great lately.”

“Yeah? What’s been going on lately?”

“Well, we went to see Harry’s family. I haven’t—Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen them,” Zayn lies, because he’s never met them before in his life, not even at his wedding. But Harry’s mom had cried when she saw him, and Harry’s sister teased him while his step-dad watched. And then, they went to his dad’s house and Zayn got to do it all over again. “It was nice to get away for a while. Yeah, it felt like we found ourselves.”

Harry nods, wetting his lips. “It wasn’t easy. There were times when I wanted to kill him, and I know he wanted to kill me, too, but we kept going until we realized there was more to how we were feeling. Honestly, I think we worked through it pretty well.”

“Yes, I would agree with that statement,” Dr. Astina says, folding her hands in her lap. “What prompted the two of you to—“

“Oh, and we redid the house,” Harry interrupts.

“Yeah, we did that. It needed it,” Zayn laughs, remembering having to ask Quincy to get him a crew that won’t say anything about all the bullet holes.

“I’m really happy to hear how well you both are doing. It’s nice to see that you’re both working together because that’s what’s important, that you’re working together,” Dr. Astina explains. “There’s always going to be challenges out there, but now you understand that you have to face them together.”

“Yeah, that’s marriage.”

“How do you think you’re going to move forward, now that you’re in a better place?”

“Ask us the sex question from earlier. In the beginning of our sessions, the one about how much sex we’ve had on a scale of one to ten. Ask us that question.”

“Oh, that’s not—“

“Ten,” Harry shouts, cutting her off. “Ten. This week, this weekend, right before we came here. Ten.”

Harry looks so proud of himself, so smug as he leans back in his seat, grinning. All Zayn can do is laugh.


End file.
